There’s something primordially satisfying about tearing into a full roasted bird. Rotisserie chicken is the perfect picnic meal.
A unique food truck in the San Francisco Bay Area now offers that experience right at the roadside.
Roadside Rotisserie literally brings a full rotisserie—complete with spinning chickens—to parks, events, and other roadside venues.
I got a chance to try Roadside Rotisserie during a free concert in Moraga Commons Park as part of the city’s summer concert series.
The first thing you’ll notice about Roadside Rotisserie is the gigantic plastic roasted chicken on top.
The second thing you’ll notice as you approach it is that the chicken is a literal reference—on the side of a big stainless steel truck, there’s an open area with multiple rotisseries. Spinning in front of you as you approach are at least 30 full roasted chickens.
The effect is a bit like walking into an old-school Boston Market, except right in a parking lot! The menu is simple and relatively affordable.
You can get an entire rotisserie chicken for around $25. Yes, that’s more than the five-dollar chickens you’ll find at places like Costco. But in this case, you’re getting a piping hot, fresh chicken straight off the rotisserie, roasted right in front of you.
Roadside Rotisserie also has a handful of other items, including ribs cooked on the rotisserie and potatoes that seem to marinate in the dripping juices from the chickens.
Make no mistake, though—the full chickens (also available as a quarter or half) are the star of the show here.
My family got a full-size rotisserie chicken and ate it in the park during a concert. It was plenty to feed all five of us, and we all tore into it together to make an extremely simple meal.
Compared to feeding five people with a traditional food truck, Roadside Rotisserie is an excellent value. Again, for around $25 for the chicken, we enjoyed a full meal for about five dollars per person.
Pair a rotisserie chicken with some Coca-Cola, and it’s an ideal picnic.
Another advantage is that you get your food extremely fast. Roadside Rotisserie can simply grab a chicken off the rotating metal spit, throw it in a bag, and have your order ready. Contrast that with some food trucks that can take 20 minutes to make a simple item.
Especially for a concert where you’re trying to get to your seat and settle in, the speed was much appreciated. So too was the quality of the chicken. The chicken was absolutely excellent, with crispy skin and plenty of meat on the bird.
I love a good Costco five-dollar chicken as much as the next guy, but the Roadside Rotisserie birds were clearly of higher quality and much fresher.
Alongside Cousins Maine Lobster, this is now one of my favorite food trucks in the Bay Area. You can find the schedule for Roadside Rotisserie on their Instagram.
