Salsa Collaborative food truck has a new name, but they're still doing what they love: working together

No one is under the illusion that running a food truck is easy. But Brian and Nikki Podgorski can’t recommend it enough.

"If you don't like your job, we're not the right people to talk to about that," Brian says. "We'll have you doing an LLC or something tonight."

The husband and wife team has served burgers around the Twin Cities since the pandemic as the Salsa Collaborative. But they're taking the next step, moving the operation from under a tent into a sleek silver vintage food truck under the new name of Burger Daddies.

Though, the name Salsa Collaborative isn't going away. It's the umbrella under which Burger Daddies will live along with the sauces and salsas they sell at stores around Minnesota and restaurant takeovers, like the ones Nikki recently led focused on Cambodian cuisine . They think of it as something like their “own Marvel Universe,” but for sauces and burgers.

As they prepare for an evening service at Minneapolis’ HeadFlyer Brewing, the couple beams with pride inside the new truck. Brian admits that even after years of slinging burgers, moving from a tent to a truck quells any lingering imposter syndrome.

It's an homage to the people who have "invested" in them. "Not by giving us money, by showing up and supporting, buying burgers," Brian says. "This is a way to show respect for everybody's support. We're incredibly thankful, because it happened much, much faster than we thought it was going to. People just started packing our lines."

Their secret sauce

While a new truck and a menu of five smashburgers — spiced and served with beautifully crispy edges — are what customers see, it’s working together that has driven them to life in the truck. “It’s our cheat code,” Nikki says. “We were like, how can we spend more time together and make money?”

While the truck didn’t open until years later, their journey into the food world started in 2016.

They took a trip to a cabin after Nikki had a car accident. "She could have died, and that would have been the worst thing that ever happened to me," Brian says. "It's like, well..."

"Life is short," Nikki interjects.

"The clock is rolling and we need to do something with our time," Brian continues. "We kind of messed around with the idea of a food truck. We wrote out a whole model for the truck, the menu, the color scheme, the name. The whole thing? It took us like 30 minutes. Boom."

However, life continued. The plan was temporarily shelved. Brian continued working at a car dealership. Nikki continued working for an insurance company.

They hated it.

On the side, Brian began making salsa and sauces, jarring them, and selling them to coworkers who encouraged him to go bigger. Then, one day, they decided things had to change.

Brian picked Nikki after a horrible day in the office. She cried in the car for 40 minutes. “We knew, this isn’t it,” Brian says of their work at the time.

“I was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’” Nikki says. “Like, what is the point of doing all of this and making money and just working nine to five? You kind of add things up and you’re like, this is totally not worth it.”

They decided it was time to work together and work for themselves.

The food begins moving fast

Soon after that day in the car, Brian quit his job, amped up production, and before long, his sauces were in 40 stores around the metro.

Things moved relatively fast. Nikki was able to leave her job and they were dishing up burgers from under a tent, working together, making good on the plans they laid out years earlier.

“People tried to talk us out of it,” Nikki says.

Brian jumps in, “We’d be like, 'That’s all true, but, what’s our heart feel?' You know?”

Their Salsa Collaborative tent began seeing repeat customers who would follow them around the Twin Cities. Other chefs began stopping by, complimenting their burgers.

“They’re saying our stuff’s great,” Brian says. “Like what is reality? You know what I mean? It feels fantastic. “

That surreal feeling hasn't abated. Notable chefs haven't just been in their line but behind the line.

Nikki recalls a catering gig at Sociable Cider Werks when Brian was sick. She decided to go through with the service, working the tent all by herself.

“I’m getting run over,” she says. “I don’t know what’s going on. I’m just trying to get all the burgers out and when you do it by yourself, it’s insane.”

During service, looking out into the line, she sees Top Chef contestant Brian Young and Guy’s Grocery Games winner Beau Vondra. “They were about to come and eat our burgers,” Nikki says. “They had no intention of being there other than to support and [Young] saw me getting absolutely buried and he’s like, ‘Do you need help?’”

Suddenly, Nikki’s working burgers under the tent with Young and Vondra. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she says. “No one had a clue.”

But more than accolades or visits from celebrity chefs, the surreal feeling, they say, is that they've made this dream come true, together.

“Genuinely, we just want to spend time together,” Nikki says. “It makes [everything] way, way better.”

Brian adds that now, they’re “just going about our day, enjoying what we do. None of this feels like work” He laughs and looks around the newly finished truck. “It’s so cliché, right?... Now, our bad days are even better than our best days before.”

Related: Where your favorite Twin Cities food trucks will be the week of Sept. 9