Bodega Truck is the first and only chopped cheese food truck in New York City. Ride along with owner Jeremy Batista, aka Chop Cheese Papi, as he starts the 18-hour workday as early as 3:30 a.m. to pick up ingredients, snag a parking spot, and serve fresh, hot chopped cheese in the city's busiest neighborhoods.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 We are the first and only chopped cheese food truck in New York City.
00:05 Chopped cheese is essentially a cheeseburger chopped up on a roll with lettuce, tomato, ketchup and mayo.
00:10 The first bite of a chopped cheese is just comfort.
00:13 All the cheese is in every single bite.
00:16 To me, it's New York City's Philly cheesesteak.
00:19 Everybody knows what a Philly cheesesteak is, but not many people know what a chopped cheese is.
00:23 And that's what we're trying to do.
00:24 We're trying to bring chopped cheese to the forefront and put it on the pedestal because chopped cheese is better than a Philly.
00:31 I'll say that. I'll die on that hill.
00:33 The hype is real. The hype is real. Best chopped cheese in the city.
00:36 Morning routine every single day.
00:44 Since we are a food truck, we don't have the luxury of having a basement where we can store and have a bunch of stuff.
00:50 So we got to shop every single day.
00:52 Good thing I played a lot of Tetris when I was a little kid.
00:54 You got to fit a lot of stuff in a small space.
00:56 The supermarkets that we go to aren't open for the public.
00:59 It's specifically for restaurants and business owners.
01:02 So those places are open anywhere from 1, 2 in the morning until 7 at night.
01:06 This is the city that never sleeps, and it's very true.
01:09 At any hour, somebody got something to do and they're going to get it done.
01:12 Every day I just pray for the parking guys to bless me with a parking spot.
01:18 That's really the difference between an okay day and a bad day.
01:20 It's all on location and your parking.
01:22 This is the best part of my day, the beautiful sunrise.
01:25 I get to witness it every day.
01:27 I wake up at 3.30 in the morning, depending on my location.
01:31 And I don't get home until 9, 10 at night.
01:34 So I'm gone the entire day. I'm like 17, 18 hour days most of the time.
01:39 Yo, what's good my boy? How's everything?
01:42 Good, baby.
01:43 Right now we're grabbing propane to be good for two days.
01:47 That's an empty one. That's easy to carry when it's empty.
01:50 There you go. Appreciate you, bro.
01:55 It's hard to cook in the cold, man. I'm telling you.
01:57 So it lasts me like two days, if I'm lucky.
01:59 Alright, now we're headed to Story of Queens.
02:03 So we are the first and only chopped cheese food truck that travels around New York City.
02:09 A lot of food trucks, they stay in one place.
02:12 We're open Wednesday through Sunday.
02:14 We go to a different borough throughout those days.
02:16 I mean, you gotta show everybody love, you know?
02:18 I like to build anticipation. I like to have that on people's minds and schedules.
02:22 Like, okay, he's gonna be here this week. I gotta catch him this week.
02:25 Bro, this is New York for you.
02:27 Getting cut off at every single second.
02:30 And it's all about respecting when these come to the food trucks.
02:32 You gotta respect each other's spots. You gotta respect each other's locations.
02:36 You don't wanna park in somebody else's spot that's been there for years.
02:38 It's disrespectful.
02:39 Other than that, first come, first served.
02:41 Whoever gets to that parking spot first is yours.
02:44 Where you park and where you're gonna be that day, it's a huge difference in business.
02:49 A lot of people try to go to the corner because you're getting an intersection.
02:53 You're getting visibility from four different directions.
02:56 So if you're in the corner, statistically, you're gonna attract more customers.
03:02 So we on the corner of 35th Ave and Steinway Street.
03:05 This is our spot when we come to Story of Queens.
03:11 So it's 8 o'clock right now. We just got to our parking.
03:14 We secured the parking spot.
03:15 I don't open the window till 12. Usually I take a nap right now.
03:18 This is my pillow right here. I use this jacket and I fold it up and I go to sleep right here.
03:24 So it's 10.30. I start prepping all the bacon. We cook about two packs a day.
03:32 My whole day just consists of hitting time stamps.
03:35 As long as I get this done before this time, I'm good to go.
03:39 All right, so it's 12 o'clock now. We're about to open the window.
03:42 Serve whoever comes our way.
03:44 Got my manager right here. He goes right here.
03:50 These were actually my Timbs when I was younger. My mom saved them.
03:55 You see the kicks hanging off the wire, so that's kind of like a little small tribute.
03:59 All these stickers, this is like, you know, New York, a lot of people just slap stickers everywhere.
04:04 I don't know where they came from. I don't know who put them there.
04:07 But we just constantly, just every day, we're getting more and more stickers filled on this thing.
04:11 All right, we're good to go. Now I just update the social media, make sure everybody knows we're here.
04:16 We update it weekly. So, you know, we got it, the date, the time, the location and where we're going to be.
04:21 This is Jair. This is my cook. He is absolute beast. He's actually three people in one.
04:27 I couldn't have done this without him.
04:30 [Spanish]
04:32 [Spanish]
05:01 It's important to have a team that's strong and efficient because we are a small truck.
05:05 So it's not like we can fit five people back here.
05:08 It's like you have to stay in that spot and you got to be able to twist and turn and get to what you need to do.
05:12 Every day we get our bread, fresh, baked, delivered to us.
05:16 He does it that quick. He cuts like 100 plus rolls in like 20 minutes. He's good.
05:20 [Spanish]
05:23 [Spanish]
05:25 This is our classic OG. We start with a fresh patty.
05:34 Then we chop it up. We season it. We add the cheese. Mix it all together and you got greatness.
05:40 Cheese is very important for us. It's like chopped cheese. You can't have a chop without no cheese.
05:45 But this is our special blend of cheeses, cheddar and American blend.
05:48 So the cheddar gives it the pull and the American gives it like that gooeyness.
05:52 We take our bodega sauce. We throw a handful of fresh cut lettuce.
05:56 Put our prettiest tomatoes right on top. Take our roll.
06:00 And there you go. That's your classic chopped cheese made the right way.
06:07 These mini burgers were my favorite growing up so I throw at least two in every bag.
06:13 We got bags and bags and bags of them.
06:15 We got all your different types of candies. Bet you haven't seen this since the early 90s.
06:19 We got the Spice Girl lollipops. That's not for sale. That's just for the vibe and for the nostalgic feeling that it gives you.
06:25 We got the bazooka gums. Comes with the comics.
06:28 I grew up in a bodega. My mother owned one when I was younger.
06:32 So I had to help her stock the shelves and clean up the place and stuff like that.
06:36 It's a place where I did my homework. So bodega has always kind of like been a part of me.
06:42 As a child you don't really like pay attention to what your parents are doing.
06:45 But as you get older you start to realize like damn my mom was waking up every day to go do what she had to do.
06:52 Like man she went through a lot and now I see it going through it myself.
06:56 Like I can't believe she did this all by herself too.
06:59 It really makes me feel grateful for the mother that I have.
07:01 Yo what's up? Thank you. Thank you. Special delivery from my wife the sauce queen.
07:07 She is the brains behind this operation. She takes care of all of our behind the scenes things like counting, sauce making.
07:17 She also does her own desserts which we sell on the truck too.
07:20 I'm like the bodega truck superhero. Like if it needs help then I'm here.
07:25 And this was all her idea to sell it by the small bottle.
07:27 Our special sauce and people really love it. And I take pride into this.
07:33 She makes it in big batches. Like we have a huge tub that is like big batches.
07:38 And I'm using this machine.
07:39 That's like half her size. She's using this heavy blender to blend everything together.
07:43 If you think what I do is a lot in here, she does more than me behind the scenes.
07:47 She's very detail oriented. She makes sure that everything is getting put where it needs to.
07:53 And she also has a degree in accounting. She gets to run all the numbers and make sure we're hitting those things that we need to do.
07:58 How would I describe him?
08:01 You're going to make me cry.
08:04 A handful. A lot to deal with.
08:06 He cares for everyone. This is truly his passion.
08:10 And there's no better person to be in this business than him. I'm so proud of him.
08:15 I'm a thug though. Don't let the tears fool you.
08:20 So for our next sandwich we're doing our good morning sandwich.
08:24 It's a bacon, egg and chopped cheese with a seasoned hash brown inside of it.
08:27 It's one of our best sellers right there.
08:29 Growing up in New York City, bodega is part of everybody's lives.
08:34 Everybody got their own personal corner bodega where the man behind the counter knows them.
08:38 Just walk in and they already got your coffee light and sweet or three sugars or whatever it is.
08:42 They got you ready. They see you grow from a little kid to an adult.
08:45 It's a real cornerstone of the community that it's in.
08:48 As New York City progressed and got gentrified and modernized, you started seeing them less and less.
08:54 Your corner bodega turned into a corner gourmet deli or half deli, half juice bar.
08:59 My mom's corner store is a Starbucks.
09:01 We can do any of the sandwiches on top of fries.
09:04 Our most popular one is a Dominicano on fries.
09:07 You know, because I'm half Puerto Rican, half Dominican.
09:09 And that's our most popular. We price out minimum 50 of those fries a day. Minimum.
09:16 So each fry gets one giant slice of fried cheese, two salami.
09:21 We also add our seasoning on top.
09:25 Close it up. Give it a good shake.
09:27 Put the first layer of sauce to make sure it's good enough.
09:30 We lay that right on top.
09:33 We have fresh shredded cabbage that we mix together with our sauce.
09:39 Chop all of it up into bite size little pieces.
09:44 So you're getting fried cheese and salami on every bite.
09:48 Layer in some more sauce right on top.
09:52 Sprinkle some nice garnish on it so it looks nice and pretty.
09:58 A good morning for you right here. Thank you.
10:02 I've been eating chopped cheese since I was like 14, 13 years old.
10:07 So it's like one of those things where you know what goes good together and what doesn't.
10:11 That's the beauty about a chopped cheese is you can switch it up and it comes together so perfect.
10:17 Hello? Bodega. Where can I get you, bro? I got you. What's your name?
10:21 A lot of people have a misunderstanding, a misconception.
10:24 They think a food truck is easy.
10:26 To work in a food truck, it's not your regular job.
10:30 We don't have bathrooms, so you got to be cool with the neighborhoods you pull up with.
10:34 So it comes down to like just being a community.
10:36 When in the summertime and it's hot outside, it's even hotter inside the truck.
10:41 And when it's cold outside, it's even colder inside the truck.
10:43 Working in a food truck is very, very difficult.
10:45 It's hard work, but it pays off if you put in the work.
10:49 What's up, bro? What's going on, man? What can I get you?
10:52 Let me get an OG on a hero, adobo fries, and a peach snapple.
10:57 Give me a couple minutes. I got you, right?
10:58 All right. Good looking, bro.
11:00 I'm from Astoria and been coming here ever since it's been open.
11:04 Instead of eating a hamburger, I feel like the cutting up the burger and putting it in the hero
11:08 makes the texture different. It tastes different.
11:11 The amount of stuff that we have to pay for, insurance, gas, commissary, parking.
11:17 But the license itself is a rental thing.
11:19 So you got to pay that $25,000 every two years.
11:22 It adds up to most of the time actual rent of a restaurant.
11:25 I actually got you right here, my bro.
11:27 Oh, perfect. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you.
11:30 Yo, always good seeing you, bro.
11:32 Likewise. Take care, bro.
11:34 My favorite part is the satisfaction I get from the customers that I serve.
11:37 Seeing them return means I'm doing something right.
11:40 Yo. What's up, bro?
11:42 How's everything? Good, man. How you living?
11:43 Doing good, man. What can I get you?
11:44 I'm doing the thing. Let's do... I'm in my hot girl era. I got to go to Hot Chick.
11:48 You got to go to Hot Chick?
11:49 Let's go Hot Chick. Let's do it on fries, though.
11:51 I've known Jeremy for years just from the online food space.
11:56 And then, lo and behold, we ended up moving right up into Astoria.
12:01 So, I mean, now it's a regular thing. I see my boy every week if I can, you know?
12:07 A lot of people have some idea that a chopped cheese is supposed to be $5.
12:13 It's not 2007 anymore.
12:15 Yeah, you can go to a corner store or bodega and get a chopped cheese and it'll be $5, $6.
12:19 These corner stores, they're able to offset those prices and give you a cheaper sandwich
12:24 because they're overcharging you on something else.
12:27 And a lot of people don't put that into perspective and realize that, you know, all we do is sell is chopped cheese.
12:32 So, we shut the window and we take our last order around like 8.
12:35 And then after that, we got like 45 minutes to an hour clean up where we got to clean pretty much everything.
12:41 And then drive the truck back to the Bronx, back to the commissary, park it, sweep and mop on the inside.
12:47 And then that's it. My day is done.
12:49 I'll get home till 10 o'clock maybe, 10, 10.30.
12:52 And then right back to it the next day.
12:54 I really wanted to keep the bodega culture alive and the nostalgic vibe of New York City.
13:00 You know, all the customers that come to my window, they're like, "I haven't seen this since I was a kid."
13:03 And it makes me feel good that I could give them that feeling.
13:07 That's what keeps me going. Feeding off people's energy.
13:09 And when they come to the truck and they have that vibe and they're ecstatic to see me
13:13 and they're glad I'm in their neighborhood, that fills me up.
13:15 I feed off that type of energy.
13:17 [music]
13:23 [MUSIC]