This spring, former Fast N’ Loud TV gearhead Richard Rawlings will roll out a $500,000 truck in Dallas with serious curb appeal. The 42-foot-long kitchen on wheels is being designed by Cameron Davies, CEO of San Antonio food truck fabrication company Cruising Kitchens.
“There’s nothing he does that’s small or mild, and the food truck has to match that,” Davies says of Rawlings and his coming-soon mobile restaurant.
The “food truck on steroids” can feed 10,000 people per day. It’ll also have T-shirt cannons.
Rawlings plans to park the truck in the backyard of Gas Monkey Garage at 2330 Merrill Road in Dallas, in what he calls the Monkey Yard. Gas Monkey’s fans — which can total up to 10,000 tourists per month — will be able to buy burgers, pizza and tacos from the food truck.
Rawlings is creating the menu himself.
“A lot of people don’t realize I actually love to cook,” he says. “It’s my second passion after cars and motorcycles.”
For nearly 10 years, Rawlings was the star of the Discovery Channel show Fast N’ Loud, which followed Dallas-based Rawlings and his crew as they restored cars. Rawlings announced in December 2020 that he is no longer affiliated with Discovery and that Fast N’ Loud would not return after its 16-season run.
Now that Rawlings is out on his own, he’s changing up his on-screen approach. A new show — targeted to his millions of fans on Facebook, Instagram and beyond — has the tentative name Monkey Trap and will air on YouTube.
“Imagine Anthony Bourdain, Guy Fieri and Richard Rawlings rolled up into one,” Rawlings says of the show.
Rawlings’ team recently made a car for Scott Disick, who fathers three children with Kourtney Kardashian and appeared in more than 100 episodes of Keeping Up with the Kardashians before starring in his own house-renovation reality show, Flip It Like Disick.
Camera crews will document each step as the Gas Monkey food truck is built. Footage will likely appear on Davies’ show Built for Business as well as on Rawlings’ YouTube channel.
Rawlings plans to be personally involved in the food truck.
As in: “A lot of times, I’ll be in that truck cooking,” he says.
Dallas concert venue Gas Monkey Live closed in May 2020; the nearby Gas Monkey Bar N’ Grill is closed as well. Rawlings maintains it’s being operated by a “rogue licensor”; a legal battle is ongoing.
A few miles away in Dallas, Gas Monkey Garage remains open to tourists during the coronavirus pandemic, and fans can visit seven days a week to buy merchandise. (Customers are asked to wear a mask.) The team has a 24/7 live cam on the website.
For Davies, making a food truck for a high-profile gearhead like Rawlings might be the most important build of his career.
“The exposure of this truck is going to be more than the exposure of any truck we’ve ever built,” Davies says.
