Renaissance Sausage

Update: no longer in operation.
Update: Back in business with a smaller cart.

This past Sunday was opening day of Headhouse Farmers' Market, and while most of the vendors are welcome faces from last year, Resnassance Sausage, a mobile food truck vending sandwiches made with local and organic homemade sausages, is a newcomer on the scene.

In fact, Sunday at Headhouse was Renassance Sausage's first day of business. Owners Dan Semko and Bret Cavanaugh are not new to the food truck business, though; they got their start in Charleston, South Carolina, vending breakfast burritos and sandwiches from a VW bus before heading back North to grace us with their food.Country herb pork sausage, Mediterranean lamb and beef sausage, Asian chicken sausage, and vegetarian sausage are on the sandwich menu all day. If you make it there before 11am a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich, as well as a brie and fig jam melt can be yours. Sides include coleslaw, potato salad, and a wheat berry salad.Of course, I came for the vegetarian sausage, as well as a whole bunch of other people — the vegetarian sausage outsold the meat sausages during my early morning wait in line.

The veggie sausage is made with vegetables, spices, and wheat gluten, then grilled and split down the center before landing in a hoagie roll with cucumber spears and blue cheese dressing.Carrots and black beans are definitely players in Renaissance's mild and vegetal tasting sausage, but I wish they would up their flavors and spices a bit — or a whole lot. The fat, squat sausage left lots of dead bread space at either end, meaning I slid the sausage to one end and tore off a good two and a half inches of bread to dispose of.

The good news here is that this was Renaissance Sausage's first day, and sausage recipes can be changed (more spices, please), and veggie sausages can easily be shaped into a longer link to better fit a bun. Here's hoping they make those changes.

I also thought the toppings on the meat sausage sandwiches sounded more robust and flavorful, but there's an easy fix to that — just ask for those instead next time.

Thanks, Renaissance Sausage, for thoughtfully including vegetarians in your sausage fest. We really do appreciate it, as I'm sure you saw from all the veggie sausage sales made on your first day.

Renaissance Sausage
Headhouse Farmers' Market, 2nd &Lombard, every Sunday 10am-2pm
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