Yep, a new food truck is rolling chicken and waffles into Ybor City.
RyRy’s Chicken & Waffles is the latest venture from James Joyce Irish Pub & Eatery owner Ryan Gougeon. Gougeon’s mobile kitchen will serve up its fried chicken and fresh-pressed waffles with toppings like fresh fruit, bacon and ice cream — at 1724 E. Eighth Ave. in the parking lot of James Joyce, where he’s already been experimenting with the comfort-food combo.
During RyRy’s test runs at the Best-of-the-Bay-winning pub, the owner would sit at a nearby table, as if he were a customer, to observe diner reactions on the fly, according to a news release. Often, he noticed people taking to social media to comment about how much they enjoyed the dish.
“Tweaking the recipes and letting our regulars be the taste testers was a great idea,” Gougeon said in the release.
Chicken and waffles, which may seem like an unlikely union but has something of a long-running cult following, is featured on menus throughout the region. But RyRy’s won’t showcase your average take on the crunchy, fluffy mashup.
Menu items include two fried chicken options (Southern or original crispy) and 10 kinds of jumbo chicken wings (with sauces like Honey Blaze and Get Up Offa That Thang Curry) ranging from 10- to 50-piece orders. Flavored waffles — including blueberry, candied maple bacon crunch and key lime pie — will accompany sides such as coleslaw, French fries and mashed potatoes with gravy.
In addition to affectionately referring to patrons as “our mutha cluckaz,” RyRy’s, which mixes social interaction with good food, has a mascot named Clucky (who enjoys wings covered in the truck's Sriracha Funky Buddha sauce) and its own SoundCloud page. Gougeon told CL Monday that the chicken-and-waffles-inspired SoundCloud raps were written and recorded by a fella he hired through Fiverr — an online marketplace for creative and professional services. The owner provided the MC who goes by gyrbeats on Fiverr with information about the historic Tampa district to give the songs an authentic feel.
Shooting for a late November opening (Dec. 1 at the latest), RyRy’s is set to offer its dynamic duo seven days a week and aims to operate 24 hours on weekends. Gougeon doesn't have permits for his restaurant-on-wheels yet, but he said it should be a quick process. Once he receives the vehicle identification number from the company that's building his food truck, he can apply for permits.
Gougeon has big expansion plans, too. In 36 months, the restaurateur with his eyes on franchising is looking to debut five locations to the greater Tampa Bay area.
“The best part about this concept is that tracking inventory is amazingly easy, and the food is hard to mess up, from a production standpoint,” he said. “As far as comfort food or the late night bar crowd goes, this concept is going to be hard to beat.”
