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| 1/14/2009 10:57:00 AM Email this article • Print this article |
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The Hot Truck can be found parked on 660 Stewart Ave., its home for many decades, ready to serve hordes of hungry visitors. (Photo by Rachel Philipson) |
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Food from the Heart
Lisa Mance
PMP Pep. Half Sui with sunshine. Mobey Delight. Grease and Garden. This is the language that could only be invented by one man: Bob Petrillose. As the owner and founder of Johnny's Hot Truck, Petrillose defined an important relationship between food and the Ithaca community. For 40 straight years, Petrillose forged unshakable relationships with nearly every sector of Ithaca, from wide-eyed Cornell undergraduates to local independent businesses and to those with a love of delicious, home-cooked food.
Petrillose's simple yet mouthwatering recipes - his most famous invention being the now-ubiquitous French bread pizza, known to Hot Truck aficionados as the Poor Man's Pizza (PMP) - have become iconic. Some of his most popular ingredients, including his infamous meatballs and Italian sausage, were painstakingly made by hand in his house with his wife, Sharon.
But it was Petrillose's personality - friendly, dedicated, and hardworking to a fault - that made him legendary. For the thousands upon thousands who frequented the Truck over the last half century, each diner was privy to both affordable, tasty fare as well as lively social atmosphere. The Truck became a notorious hangout for late-night revelers looking for a hot bite after the bars closed and the keggers ended. In 2000, another Ithaca institution, the Shortstop Deli, bought the Hot Truck from Petrillose, where he then retired from his home on Pleasant Grove Road to a house in Elmira.
In December of 2008, Petrillose succumbed to a long battle with Parkinson's Disease, and his loss was deeply felt. Since his death, the outpouring of love for Bob Petrillose has been staggering - but not surprising. The number of lives that Petrillose touched is testament to his genuine kindness, compassion and generosity of spirit. Here is but a tiny fraction of the good words the Ithaca community, past and present, had to say about the man behind the Hot Truck.
"I experienced a wide range of feelings when I found out that Bob passed away. I worked for him in the truck for more semesters than I matriculated at Cornell! (Laughs) Restaurants are a rough and tumble business, and he was such a gentle man. The rowdiest folks always showed up after 1am, when the bars closed, because he had something that people wanted. But he also had such a personal touch, so warm, genuine and caring. He was great with first names, and obviously the number of people who came out was in the thousands.
I was lucky to forge a close connection to him, as I was introduced by a brother at Phi Psi when I was a freshman at Cornell. I worked the window and was a go-between between Bob, who made the food. Everyone had the most wacky, idiosyncratic sandwiches, like, 'Cut it in thirds, mayonnaise on the middle third, garlic only on the outside third.' (Laughs) He knew how to manage those little details. He was very even-keeled; he had great instincts.
Bob valued the people who worked with him, because that job was not easy. Bob had a grounding presence. He knew that life is a freefall on many levels, especially as an undergraduate at Cornell, and he was such a grandfatherly figure to me.
I worked in the old school truck, and he later bought a new truck that could fit three people, including himself. But when I was there, it was just the two of us. You had to be careful swinging a tray in there! And all those years, he never burnt me, and I never burnt him - although I burnt myself. Twice. (Laughs) It was a finely-tuned ballet in that little space."
-Pete Sczupak, Cornell alum '88
Worked on the truck from 1984-1988
"He always had such a way with customers, and everyone. It always amazed me how he remembered people's names and what sandwiches they ate, even if it had been years later. I never knew him much because he was working constantly, but I worked with him in the truck my senior year of high school and some of college, and we got closer than we had ever been. I learned so much about him, how he conducted his business, how he got along with the kids on campus, which frats he cooked for on the weekends. If we had winded down at 4am or 5am, I would be exhausted, but someone would always walk up, hungry. If he knew him, he would be like, 'No, no, I know this kid, let's make him a sandwich!' (Laughs)
He really ruled the roost down there. If people were drunk and inebriated and things got out of hand, all he had to was say, 'Hey, everyone will get taken care of, please sort this out, someone take care of this' and that's the way it was. He did it for 40 years, and he knew what was going on and what he wanted out of it. It was his own little world."
-Bob Petrillose, Jr.
Son of Bob, Sr., and worked on the Hot Truck from '75-'77
"Bob did many wonderful things, many things that need to be chronicled. He had a full life, and it was much more than work, it was a family to him. He was always there, and very dependable."
-Sharon Petrillose
Wife of Bob Petrillose, Sr.
"I first got to know Bob in the fall of 1977, when I was a freshman at Cornell living on West Campus. It's funny, thinking back now and the way that I was able to know him at the time: you always had to wait in a long line to order, and sometimes you would notice people standing in the truck. And you don't think twice until it's a freezing cold night, and then you wonder. (Laughs) So one night I introduced myself and chatted with him a little bit, and Bob asked me a lot of questions. As for sandwich orders, I pretty much limited myself to the PMP and the Sui!
I kept going up there until he sold the truck - I was in office at the time when he sold it. But before I was in office, back when I owned Simeon's, I would go up to him and talk restaurant business. There was such a commonality there. One of the nice things about him was that he was such a laid-back guy, with no agenda. He called it like it is, but in a very nice way. I could always count on getting a balanced, reasonable perspective from him. I can't say enough about Bob - he was a wonderful, wonderful man."
-Alan Cohen
Former Ithaca mayor
"We bought the Hot Truck in 2000, and as the legend goes, he had been after me for a number of years to buy the Hot Truck, but we weren't able to until 2000. The truck was originally purchased by Bob in 1960, and he did that from 1960 to 2000 - and I think of those 40 years, for any given night that there were student in the dorms, I think he missed three nights out of those 40 years. (Laughs) He originally made and sold whole pizzas, and it was a mobile pizza truck. But he knew that just warming up slices wasn't his best, so he moved on to making it on French bread, and thus the PMP was born.
We definitely try to carry on the Hot Truck tradition. It's a huge part of Cornell, and we're happy to still operate the truck and offer Hot Truck food at our deli 24-7. All of his creations are very popular. Bob was a great man. In my opinion, he offered more counseling to Cornell students than any Cornell staff there. He knew how to get you back on track."
-Albert E. Smith
Owner of Shortstop Deli
"When I got to Cornell the fall of '87, Hot Truck seemed like an oasis in a cold wasteland. (Laughs) Fast forward to early 2008, I realized that I couldn't find anything about Hot Truck on Facebook, which I thought was odd. I thought to myself, 'Let's see pictures. Let's see other people's memories.' It's hard to describe the concept, to explain who Bob was - to show that the Hot Truck was an experience, and not just a sandwich.
In October of 2008, we had fewer than 230 members on the Facebook group. When Bob passed in early December, I noticed that 10, 50, 200 people were joining every day. People I didn't know were sending me messages and posting photos. It amazed me that so many people out there felt the same way I did - to see how many people out there for which Bob and his creations were an integral part of their Ithaca experience. Even for people who hadn't been in Ithaca for a while, there was still a sense of real loss, and that was tough for me. There has been a real outpouring of genuine sorrow."
-Dan Milstein, Cornell alum '91
Creator of Facebook group, 'Johnny's Hot Truck,' with 1,296 members and counting
"For one of my courses in the Hotel School, every student had an opportunity to run the Statler Cafeteria as part of the curriculum. I got Bob to agree to let me use a 'Night at the Hot Truck' theme on a Wednesday. It was the single busiest night in the history of the course, with over 500 people coming. The normal night at that time had about 200 covers. Bob was in attendance and got to interact with some of his die-hard fans a little more than usual and really had a fun time. It was wonderful to see him happy and relaxed. The most memorable part was that I worked the Truck that night and we did another 250 orders (a busy Wednesday) with most of the people having come to Statler just a couple of hours earlier. When I pointed this out to a couple of customers they said, 'Eating Hot Truck twice a day is still not enough.' The next day the Daily Sun ran a story on the event, which was the icing on the cake - or Grease and Garden on the Moby to use the vernacular."
-Eric Ford, Cornell alum '87
Worked on the truck
"I started working with Bob in 1992. Then in 1998 I helped start a business plan regarding expansion and franchising the Hot Truck. Around that time I also lived with Bob, which was a really amazing year. He had these two convertibles that he would drive every once in a while, and he would take Sharon and him to Lansing to get ice cream. (Laughs) Those are the memories that I will take with me forever. I spent a year taking daily walks with Sharon and working more shifts with Bob over the summer, and I really got to know him as a person, rather than just someone at a window. And the person that I was allowed to get to know was so pivotal. Bob pretty much changed how I looked at my every day.
Bob had an amazing work ethic tied with an amazing heart. You'll never see anyone like it again. There's no customer loyalty that will rival his. That's a sad part of what's been lost. I like to think that the people who were influenced by him will carry on some of that - how he made the simple into magic. Something like the concept of putting sauce on bread and then putting cheese on it... it seems so simple, but I can tell you that the first chance I had to make my first sub, holding the ladle and putting the sauce on, my hands were literally shaking. (Laughs) It was just a PMP and it wasn't that complicated, but the amount of respect for the magic he created was what I really loved being a part of.
Another great memory I have is working until 3 or 4am in the morning, cleaning the surfaces and unplugging - and then someone would walk up with a disappointed look on their faces, and he would re-open. (Laughs) That, in a nutshell, is how he looked at every single customer - the first customer was served the same way as the last."
-Erik Lehmann, Cornell alum '95
Worked on the Truck for six years, and was part of the management team for the initial store in Boston
"I won't claim to have been Bob's buddy, but like countless thousands of Cornell alumni, I can say I'm one of the people Bob recognized and seemed happy to see, time after time. Even when he couldn't remember people's names, he somehow remembered little bits about what each person was up to, or into... asked how a sick parent was doing or how a tough test had gone.
Even as a student, I remember being impressed at Bob's work schedule - up most of the night until others in town were starting to wake up, not only serving delicious and hot food until all hours, but cleaning up afterwards, then spending the afternoon with his wife cooking their amazing homemade meatballs and sausages and prepping everything else... then heading back to Stewart Ave. and starting the process all over again.
One weekend when Ithaca got socked with four feet of snow and the roads were closed, a bunch of us from my fraternity, Kappa Delta Rho, finished shoveling out our own parking lot and driveway, and then trekked cross-country with as many snow shovels as we could find, and dug out Bob's house and the truck. He was so grateful, he fired up the ovens in the truck and made us all fresh Hot Truck subs, which warmed us up nicely!
Bob's roots in Ithaca's food community go both way back and into the future... More people were directly touched by [Bob] than by any Mayor of Ithaca or President of Cornell; we can smile as we remember the sweetest, hardest-working man ever to feed Ithaca and Cornell."
-Mark H. Anbinder, Cornell alum '89
Local food writer; Editor of 14850 Dining
"The Hot Truck relationship with Phi Kappa Psi began in the mid-1980s, when a brother of Phi Kappa Psi who was also a "Truck Boy" - meaning he worked the Hot Truck for Bob - thought it would be a good business opportunity for Bob to arrive early on the Hill, late afternoon, to do Phi Kappa Psi's dinner at the front door of the Chapter House, prior to the Hot Truck doing its usual routine at the edge of West Campus. So we chipped in to have a 440V connection put in to the coat closet inside the front door, and rolled out the industrial extension cord every Saturday afternoon at 5pm. Bob would keep the truck in the front parking lot of the House until he was ready to go over to the other side of West Campus. We would order dinner, and charge it on our dining account through the Cornell bursar. ATO also had an active "Truck Boy" team, and there was a friendly competition when spots came open to work the truck.
We never turned non-brothers away if they came down for "our Truck time," so it wasn't exclusive. But we would clear out our parking lot, play lacrosse, eat Hot Truck, and drink Gin and Tonics in old wine carafes on the roof of the Chapter, watching the sun set over fair Cayuga."
-Dan Meyer
Cornell alum, Phi Kappa Psi brother
"I worked for Bob for three years in the mid 80s (the reliably insane Saturday night shift). Bob and I spent a lot of time together back in the day, and he was someone I very much looked up to as a father figure at a time when I was otherwise on my own for the first time.
I remember listening to the end of the 6th game of the 1986 World Series with Bob - it was an infamous game where the Red Sox were within an out of winning the series and the NY Mets mounted an miraculous comeback. It was the only time in my tenure where there was not a single customer at the truck, just the two of us sharing an unforgettable moment in sports history. When the game ended there was a deluge of people who all converged on the truck as the epicenter of the celebration. It was a memorable night.
We used to get very big crowds with long waits on Saturday night. For a few people there would be a couple of spots in the truck where you could wait in warmth and watch Bob perform Truck magic. Bob had a knack for making these folks feel like elite customers, and always listened to their sometimes-incoherent stories (it was Saturday night, after all) with interest. On rare occasion, things would boil over on the steps and fights would break out. All Bob had to do was stick his head out the window and raise his finger and the trouble would stop.
I also remember helping Bob make meatballs in his kitchen at home. At the time Bob was caring for his dad, who had Alzheimer's, and required a lot of attention. Bob would be up to his elbows with raw meatball, and then would have to drop everything and take care of his dad. Through all that, Bob managed to get his work done and not lose his patience with his dad. It left a strong impression on me about how one should respond to life's burdens, and a lesson that helped me care for my own stepmom at the end of her life."
-James W. Greenwood, Cornell alum '87
Worked on the Truck in the mid-80s
"Joel Steiger, Cliff Bonhart and I did our restaurant night - a class in the hotel school - at the Statler celebrating the 30th anniversary of Johnny's Hot Truck. We made Hot Truck sandwiches, served them in paper bags on a plate, sold bud beer for $1 and cancelled dinner at the house that night. Bob and his wife had a table centered in the dining room with a cake and a miniature hot truck on it. We painted a Mattel ambulance, I think. We sang happy birthday and we ended up with the busiest night that semester, and made a profit of $1. He was so great to us to help us pull that off. That will be my favorite sober memory of Bob."
-Jason Arnold, Ithaca High School graduate and Cornell alum, '90
"Bob was clearly a special individual, and I and the brotherhood [Phi Kappa Psi] felt blessed to have been lucky enough to have Bob involved with our fraternity. In addition to having many of our brothers work at the truck with Bob, we had a special arrangement whereby Bob opened early for solely for our house every Friday (we even had our own hot-truck power line installed in our house). As a result of our dining with him every week, he knew every brother well (and their girlfriends).
My wife Denice is also a Cornell '90 (and a sister at Kappa Kappa Gamma) and we were married at Sage Chapel in the summer of 1992. While we had a wonderful dinner and reception, our wedding would not have been complete without a stop to see Bob and grab a late night snack.
After we graduated, my wife and I moved to the San Francisco. During the time prior to his retirement, a group of Cornell alums kept in touch with Bob and held an annual "Hot Truck Party" on the west coast whereby Bob would Fed Ex us a few boxes of uncooked sandwiches and we would cook them for our Cornell friends (and a select few non-Cornell friends who learned to love his work). These were a huge hit and brought back many fond memories for us.
-Peter Gant, Cornell alum '90
"As a brother at Phi Psi, it was one of our favorite places to go and get something to eat late at night. Bob was always there - it didn't matter the weather or the time. People would wait an hour sometimes but no one minded. Half the appeal of the truck was socializing, as a place to get together and talk about your day.
The Hot Truck was a neutral territory where people knew not to give other people a hard time; no one yelled or fought... you knew you couldn't start trouble. Bob was a truly nice guy and it was not in Bob's nature to be cross, and it was one of those Cornell traditions passed down from year to year, the etiquette known to the Hot Truck faithful.
It was the best thing ever. I know what my last meal would be: WDB with Pep."
-Doug Pew, Cornell alum '89
Contributions may be made to a scholarship established in Bob's name at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration c/o The Robert C. Petrillose Scholarship Fund, Tompkins Trust Company, Attention Sue Lason, PO Box 460, Ithaca, NY 14851. For more information, visit www.hottruckbob.com. n
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