Leland chef continues serving 'sexy food' and smash burgers to grow his nonprofit
Earlier this year, Kory Sanderlin was facing the loss of his restaurant, M&K's Kitchen in Leland, as well as huge financial hurdles.
“It's been a rough five or six months," he said.
But he said he couldn’t let these setbacks deter him from his mission to continue his work with Bare Necessities of NC, a nonprofit that aims to provide the community with what they needed during hard times and natural disasters.
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To help with that goal, he and Danny Pasillas, a fellow chef who is also the cofounder of the nonprofit, started a partnership with James Hailey, of the Texas-based OTG food truck business.
For the past three weeks, Sanderlin and Pasillas have been out with the Smash-N-Dash food truck, which is a part of OTG. They also help troubleshoot and consult for the business.
If you've seen the food truck in Brunswick and New Hanover counties, you might have tried one of his signature items, like the smash burgers, bacon-wrapped hotdogs and nachos.
It's sounds simple enough, but each dish can be customized with one of Smash-N-Dash's seven signature styles. The O.G., for example, has Smash Sauce, caramelized onions and cheddar sauce. The Western has fried onion straws and adds Dash Sauce. The Hangover includes bacon and egg with lots of extras.
“We’ve had a lot of positive feedback,” Sanderlin said.
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He became well-known in Leland for his neon "Sexy Food" sign. He's still serving it up now, he said.
And while it's fun to serve people a great meal, for him part of being a chef is helping those in need. His relationship with OTG means they act as a sponsor for the non-profit. Sanderlin said other community sponsors have stepped up, too for community events.
In between bookings for lunch and dinner, many of them in Leland, he and Pasillas also schedule events which often provide free meals to the community.
“My birthday is in August, and one thing I would like to do is have a big community fish fry,” Sanderlin said, maybe in the Navassa area.
"We are working on the building blocks for Bare Necessities," he said. But he envisions growing it to be a national organization.
He knows there's a lot of work ahead to make that happen. The issues that ended his previous restaurant endeavor are ongoing.
"It took four years to build what I had,” he said. “This has been like a reset.”
First, he'd like to add a larger food truck and then find a permanent location for Bare Necessities.
“My goal is to just keep building,” he said. “In two or three years, it’s going to be what state are we getting started in next.
Allison Ballard is the food and dining reporter at the StarNews. You can reach her at aballard@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: The chef and owner of M&K's Kitchen returns with Leland food truck
