A new kind of food truck comes bearing artisan foods

The sound of Sonny Rollins' sax and the sizzle of grass-fed meat were wafting through the open window of the Lucky Old Souls Burger Truck the other day. And the sensory combo wafting over the hungry crowd gathering at LOVE Park was so potent, the first customer in line was moved to ask: "Are you guys on the Food Network yet?"

"Not quite yet," said Matthew "Feldie" Feldman modestly. "We've only been open five weeks."

But if anyone appreciates life in the fast lane of Philly's accelerating food truck scene, it would be Feldman. He has spent three years trying to open an actual brick-and-mortar restaurant-jazz club in South Philly called Lucky Old Souls ("and I still don't have a target date"). So, eager to get the brand going, he bought a food truck in July and was on the road by mid-October, serving up $9 patties topped with house-smoked bacon, tomatoes, and secret sauce.

"We're basically a restaurant on wheels - not the trucks and carts of yesterday serving cheesesteaks out of a package onto a grill," Feldman said. "We're making things from scratch."

Lucky Old Souls is hardly the only truck bringing artisan effort to the city's mobile eating scene. In fact, the sudden growth in new offerings, especially in the last few months, is turning into one of the most dynamic Philly food stories of 2011. There are wood-fired-oven pizza trucks turning-out Neapolitan-style pies, trucks cooking with locally sourced ingrediients, and trucks focused on vegan noodle soups. The barbecue-themed Smoke Truck from ex-Bebe's pit-master Mark Coates and his partners from the Wishing Well began its brisket runs this week.

There are trucks brewing high-end coffee, a cart draped in orange prayer flags steeping serious loose-leaf tea. A yogurt truck, a handmade-pasta truck, a vegan hoagie cart, and a farm-to-table truck are reportedly also in the works. And there is competition - in cupcakes, in tacos, in crepes, even with gourmet grilled cheese, as evidenced by the two new trucks that have found themselves pressing gooey sandwiches almost side-by-side on the same block of Temple University's campus.