Beth and Kendale Chapman spent years visiting festivals, studying food trucks and telling each other the same thing: “This should be us.” Now FiddyCafe is theirs, with breakfast, smoked meats, creative wings and plenty of personality on the menu.

By Sara Turney

Before Beth and Kendale Chapman owned a food trailer, they were the people walking around festivals studying everyone else's.

They watched how food trucks operated, noticed what seemed to work and what did not, and tried enough food to make Beth joke that the research probably should have added “hundreds and hundreds of pounds.”

Again and again, the same thought came up between them.

“This should be us.”

It was not an idea that appeared out of nowhere. Kendale, known as Chef Fiddy, grew up cooking in the kitchen with his parents, and food had long been part of the Chapmans' life together. They were the ones hosting dinners at home and cooking for other people, with Kendale putting the same kind of attention into a meal for family and friends that he now brings to paying customers.

Beth has a succinct way of explaining their partnership.

“I’m the brains, he’s the talent lol.”

Eventually, after years of talking, watching, tasting, planning and praying, the couple purchased their first food trailer and turned the sentence they had repeated at all those festivals into something real.

Now this is them.

FiddyCafe serves breakfast, prepared meals, smoked wings, pulled pork and a lineup of sides, with a menu broad enough to take customers from the first meal of the day well into dinner.

The only problem may be deciding what to order.

Beth and Kendale cannot even agree on that.

His pick, her pick

Ask the Chapmans what someone should order if they can try only one thing from FiddyCafe, and you get two answers.

Beth chooses the Beef Burger Bowl.

She describes it as being like a Big Mac without the bread, with the familiar satisfaction of a burger transformed into a bowl with bold flavors.

Kendale goes straight to the wings.

For him, they are more than a bestseller. Wings were one of the foods that first gave him room to experiment creatively in the kitchen.

That experimentation has gone well beyond the standard lineup.

Peanut butter and jelly wings have happened.

So have margarita wings.

Those ideas sit alongside flavors customers already know, including garlic Parmesan, lemon pepper and buffalo, as well as FiddyCafe's natural barbecue glaze.

The wings have become a customer favorite, and Beth says people will sometimes buy a 20 piece platter with every intention of stretching it across several days.

“We always hear that they didn’t make it overnight lol.”

Apparently, meal planning only works until someone opens the container again.

The Merchant’
Inside of this massive baked tortilla, you’ll find it packed with layers of grilled chicken, melted cheese, eggs, pico, crispy bacon, spinach, and chipotle sauce.

Breakfast deserves a little imagination too

FiddyCafe does not wait until lunch to start having fun with the menu.

Breakfast includes sandwiches, quesadillas, burritos, bowls and pizzas. The Porky Breakfast Sandwich is the item Beth and Kendale say best represents the business because it takes something familiar and serves it in a way customers may not expect.

The sandwich combines a sweet bagel, fried bologna, sugar jam, bacon and cheese.

That combination tells you quite a bit about the FiddyCafe approach. Familiar food is welcome here, but it does not necessarily have to stay familiar.

The breakfast pizzas get a similar reaction.

Customers are often surprised by the amount of food and by the idea of pizza as breakfast in the first place.

Beth acknowledges the obvious exception.

Unless, of course, it is cold pizza from the night before and you are hungover.

FiddyCafe has a sense of humor about food, but there is real thought behind the menu. Kendale has spent years cooking and experimenting, and Beth describes the care he puts into every meal as part of what pushed them toward opening the business.

For both of them, the payoff happens when somebody else takes the first bite.

“There is no better feeling than feeding someone and seeing their faces when they bite into that first bite then hearing their comments,” Beth says.

That feedback still matters to them as much as the sale.

There is plenty beyond the food trailer

One of FiddyCafe's biggest successes has developed away from festivals.

Beth works at a dealership, where she became very familiar with the repetition of weekend employee lunches.

Pizza.

Sandwiches.

Chicken.

Eventually, she says, it all gets old.

FiddyCafe saw an opportunity.

The business now provides Saturday lunches for several dealerships, with catering menus that include smoked wings, pulled pork, premium sides and dessert. FiddyCafe supplies the plates and cutlery too, so once lunchtime arrives, employees can simply eat.

It is a practical extension of what Beth and Kendale already do well, and it gives the business another way to serve people beyond waiting for the next festival.

Prepared meals add another dimension. Customers can find combinations built around salmon, chicken, steak or pork chops with rice, vegetables and other sides.

Then there are the sides themselves, including macaroni and cheese, baked beans, green beans with onions and bacon, and Fiddy potatoes.

The range is one of the things Beth and Kendale see as a strength.

Breakfast, lunch or dinner, FiddyCafe wants to have an answer.

About that name

Of course, we need to talk about Fiddy.

Kendale has apparently been hearing the same thing from strangers since before he and Beth met.

He looks like 50 Cent.

People stare. Eventually someone asks the question.

“Hey, do you know you look like 50Cent?”

Beth finds this significantly more entertaining than Kendale does.

She would laugh and start singing a 50 Cent song. Kendale, according to Beth, would put his head down and tell her to stop.

It did not stop the nickname.

Now it is on the business.

“That name had never left him and now it never will,” Beth says.

There are worse ways for a food trailer to get a memorable name.

It also fits the personality Beth brings to the story. The Chapmans clearly take their food and their business seriously without feeling the need to take themselves seriously every minute of the day.

That combination makes FiddyCafe feel like a family business rather than a carefully manufactured concept.

Because that is exactly what it is.

Family, food and a divided football house

Away from the trailer, Beth and Kendale's life centers around family.

They have three children, a son who is 23 and two daughters, ages 18 and 8. They also share a love of cars and enjoy car shows and events.

College football is another family interest, although “share” may be a generous word for it.

Their house is divided between Auburn and the Florida Gators.

Some disagreements are apparently easier to solve than others.

The family element carries into the way Beth and Kendale talk about FiddyCafe. They are proud of reaching the point where the business exists at all, after years of imagining themselves on the other side of the festival experience.

They also know how much work went into getting there.

There have been long nights and early mornings, with husband and wife working together to make sure the food they serve reflects what they want the FiddyCafe name to mean.

When those hours catch up with them, customer reactions help.

“Money is great, but customer feedback is what fuels us,” Beth says.

At festivals, one of their favorite things is simply watching a new customer try the food for the first time.

For people who spent years doing exactly that at other vendors' trucks, there is something especially fitting about the role reversal.

Serving more than customers

Beth and Kendale also have a goal for FiddyCafe that has nothing to do with expanding the menu.

They want to use the business to serve people who may not be able to purchase a meal.

Their hope is to choose a different location once a month and spend time feeding people experiencing homelessness and others who are struggling.

For the Chapmans, serving the community is part of what they want the business to become as it grows.

Their faith is central to that outlook. When asked what keeps them motivated, their answer begins with God, then each other, and then the customers who continue supporting the business.

That perspective also shapes the advice they offer to people thinking about starting something themselves.

They do not pretend it is easy.

Getting a business started takes time, work and persistence. Their advice is still to go for it if the passion is real.

“Don’t go through life with the what ifs and wasting time.”

They know something about the “what if.”

For years, they walked through festivals imagining what it might be like to have a trailer of their own.

Now they're the ones behind the window

The Chapmans want more for FiddyCafe.

More events. More cities. Maybe more states.

Perhaps, one day, a restaurant.

For now, there is plenty happening from the trailer and through their catering work, and there is a menu that makes choosing one recommendation nearly impossible.

Beth will tell you to get the Beef Burger Bowl.

Kendale will send you toward the wings.

The Porky Breakfast Sandwich might be the better choice if you find them early enough in the day, particularly if fried bologna, bacon, cheese, sugar jam and a sweet bagel sound like your kind of breakfast.

Then again, there are those breakfast pizzas.

The good news is that FiddyCafe serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, so nobody said you had to solve the entire menu in one visit.

Years ago, Beth and Kendale Chapman were walking through festivals, trying other people's food and looking at the trucks and trailers around them.

“This should be us,” they kept saying.

Now, when you see FiddyCafe at an event, Beth and Kendale are the ones behind the window.

It is finally them.

Meet FiddyCafe: Big Flavors, Creative Wings and a Dream Years in the Making