Burgers, wings and fries: Eastside Brewing opens kitchen with help from Slab food truck

The Slab food truck plans to open its first brick and mortar location at the Eastside Brewing Co. in Reynoldsburg Thursday.

While the brewpub opened at 1421 Davidson Drive in January, it hasn’t had a kitchen until now. And Slab has never had a permanent location.

“I was told through a friend that Eastside Brewing Company was looking for food trucks,” Slab co-owner Bryan Nelson said. “So I went to their Facebook page and saw they were looking for someone to fill the kitchen and I reached out. We had a meeting a few days after and agreed it should be a good match.”

Eastside owner Rich Hennosy, who also owns Buckeye Lake Brewing in Buckeye Lake, said five food trucks responded to his query, and Slab was the first he talked to.

“After meeting them and trying their food, I cancelled all the other interviews,” he said. “Everything I ate was amongst the best I ever had.”

Hennosy loved the elevated bar food that Slab serves, and he immediately hit it off with Bryan Nelson and his brother, Terron Nelson, Slab’s other co-owner.

The Nelsons were raised in Reynoldsburg, and Hennosy liked their ties to the community.

“That clinched the deal,” he said.

Slab has been in business for nearly three years and makes frequent stops at Columbus brewpubs. But the owners have long planned to open a brick and mortar location.

“We figured we would go the truck route first to build the brand,” Terron Nelson said.

The Nelsons felt Eastside Brewing offered them the perfect opportunity to open a stationary kitchen, and the brothers hope to open more permanent locations in the future.

Slab serves bar food staples like burgers and chicken wings but is known for its baby back ribs.

Brewers often turn to food trucks to provide sustenance for customers. In most cases, the relationship is mutually beneficial. Food truck patrons buy alcohol from the brewery, and craft beer lovers buy food from the trucks.

Hennosy, who has no experience in the culinary industry, hopes Eastside and Slab will have a similarly symbiotic relationship.

“It’s not just setting up the kitchen, it’s having the experience and being able to produce top notch food,” Hennosy said.

Buckeye Lake and Eastside have beers unique to each location but share some brews. For example, both breweries make the same craft sider, but it's called "EastCider" at Eastside and goes by "Cranberry Bog Cider at Buckeye Lake.

pcooley@dispatch.com

@PatrickACooley