This is the latest in a summer series on Central Mass. food trucks — with a look at the people at the wheel and the window.
Truck: Sauced & Tossed Chicken Co.
Owner: Grant Fabbri of Charlton
The Staple Sauce: The truck’s staple is a mouthful: the spicy, sweet chili and boneless-chicken basket. Make sure you don’t leave without the side of fries.
The Toss: Passion for cooking has always surrounded Grant Fabbri.
Growing up, he was often in the company of a parent cooking and trying new things around the kitchen. Fabbri, with a little help from YouTube, picked up the culinary bug at a young age, learning how to use a barbecue smoker to make pulled pork in his teens.
After earning a degree in marketing from Assumption University in 2022, the only thing he could think of doing was exactly that — cooking for a living.
For a young man who wanted to run his own food establishment, the most practical thing was to run a food truck.
“We get to do our own thing,” said Fabbri, who is 23. “We get to try and see what would work, but then switch it up if nobody’s getting one type of food and get a flat-top (grill) start doing chicken and burgers, which is nice.
“You’re in such a volatile space in the restaurant industry where you need to be able to do what the people need.”
While it took a drive down to Georgia to find just the right truck, it was a cordial exchange with a Registry of Motor Vehicles worker in Massachusetts that led to the business’s name, Fabbri said.
“We were just getting paperwork done for the truck and we’re talking to one of the dudes working there,” said Fabbri. “He was like, ‘What do you guys do?’ I said, ‘We take the chicken, we sauce it and we toss it in the sauce.'”
The man replied, “Why don’t you call it that?”
And that’s how Sauced and Tossed Chicken Co. was born.
The logo, a chicken that appears drunk on hot sauce, was the design of Fabbri’s uncle, Gary Fabbri, a children’s books author and illustrator.
Fabbri makes all the sauces himself, with spicy sweet chili sauce — made with “a lot of vinegar, garlic and ginger” — leading the menu among other options such as buffalo, honey mustard and BBQ.
For the dry-rub fans, Fabbri also offers Nashville Hot and Garlic Parm.
Whether its boneless, bone-in or even the five-piece jumbo wings, Fabbri marinates all his chicken in buttermilk and then breads by hand before frying to order.
“Everybody likes fried chicken, and there was not really that many other trucks when we started,” said Fabbri. “We picked chicken because there’s not really anybody else that’s doing it.”
To balance the savory flavor with a sugary punch, Fabbri offers funnel cakes and churros.
Which roads does the chicken cross? As Fabbri tries to make himself stand out in the local food scene by participating at many public events, he also caters for private events.
For the remainder of June, Sauced and Tossed Chicken Co. will be at the Grafton Farmers Market (June 19), the Oxford Farmers Market (June 21), the Shrewsbury Food Truck Night (June 27) and the Winchendon Food Truck Festival (June 28).
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