Rambler goes from wheels to West Duluth

By Christa Lawler clawler@duluthnews.com

Jonathan Reznick’s business HQ is a kitchen space in West Duluth filled with all the Duluth things: a print of a weary chef over a sauce pot painted by local artist Jonathan Thunder, a table for six made by Duluth Timber Co., a Ramble On coat rack for the aprons — a gift from Rachelle Rahn of Duluth Kombucha.

The owner-operatorinventor of a highly cravable pulled pork and pineapple sandwich has a bag from Duluth Pack laid out on a chair.

This is MidCoast Catering, where the business-behind-the-business happens. Reznick, 39, whose food truck, The Rambler, has been a local curbside staple since 2013, is a pick for the News Tribune’s 2019 20 Under 40 award.

He was nominated by Kelsey Auran, his office manager. She credits him with fitting the award’s qualifications in every possible way — including running a business with passion.

“He’s a wonderful person, a great person, he cares very deeply about people,” she said.

Reznick was among the first to bring food trucks onto the local scene. Within two years, his big, boxy green truck was in enough demand for private events to warrant expansion to his own commercial kitchen.

“We were renting, and space was limited,” Reznick said during a recent stop to his shop. “We were starting to get more catering.”

Suddenly, his summer help had winter work, too. Reznick has seven people on staff.

Midwest Catering is on North Central Avenue. It’s next door to the West Theater and across the street from Zenith Bookstore. His picture window view is of Central Sales, and Gannucci’s Italian Market is within smelling distance.

A white board at the shop has a grocery list, the menu for a tasting, other notes. During this visit, a tree trunk-style serving tray held peaches and brie and strawberries and blackberries. Still to come: an antipasto bar and caprese salad. He had a catering job with a local radio station later that night.

Reznick has always worked in food — starting with a suburban Pannekoeken where he bused tables and washed dishes, including a family pizza restaurant, and a job with Savories Catering in Duluth.

Food truck life works for him, he said, more creativity than a brickand-mortar restaurant.

“I get to be more creative and we get up close with customers as well,” he said. “I like the rush of the truck.”

Getting to know my customers is my favorite part of being out on the streets. We get to meet so many different people and go to different events and listen to different music and art. We’ve done grad parties for people and then done their wedding, which is kind of cool. I think we are really personable with our customers and I think they enjoy that.

JONATHAN REZNICK,

FOOD TRUCK, MIDCOAST CATERING CO. OWNER

What do you do? (job, community involvement)

I work full time as the arts and cultural program coordinator at the American Indian Community Housing Organization (AICHO), unofficially as the in-house graphic designer/marketing and web manager, but more officially as part of a team of folks who coordinate events and establish programming for the community. Outside of my day job, I’m a working visual artist (specifically a painter, though I dabble in everything). Due to some physical issues that I’m still navigating today, I actually lost the use of my arm for a few years, but as a result I got into arts organizing and event curation. I help coordinate a community events like the show Goody Night and find myself teaching in a lot of classrooms for folks of all ages.

Most recently, I fell into the realm of public art, and it’s truly been surreal, from coordinating the Chief Buffalo mural project at the Lakewalk with the Indigenous Commission to collaborating with Zeitgeist to create street murals all through Central Hillside. Painting on my own can sometimes be very painful for my body; however, with my process of creating public art, I often invite volunteers to help install my designs, so work gets done faster and folks sort of become my living paint brushes. The feeling of letting go and seeing the end result come to life is pretty wild.

How do you spend your free time?

I have a very public private life. I’m surrounded by people 90 percent of the time, which I don’t mind so much. For various reasons I grew up quite isolated besides going to school, so I feel at this point I’m making up for all that time. Art used to be my free-time activity, but I hesitate to call it that now.

I am learning to find and appreciate a lot more leisurely activities these days, though. I love going out dancing and I love taking mini-vacations to the Twin Cities (which is funny because, growing up in Cloquet, Duluth used to be the “big city” my family took trips to). Going for walks with my “walking buddy”-turned-boyfriend is one of my favorite pastimes. On the few occasions where I’m not driving myself places, I enjoy reading books while somebody else does the driving. I’m a big fan of economics textbooks (for fun, yes) and reading in general when I get the time.

Tell us about an influential person in your life.

There’s a quote that says we’re the average of the five closest people in our lives. Throughout my adult life, those five people have changed a lot for me, which I don’t see as a bad thing, it just makes it hard to pinpoint my main influences. One of those close people (who remains today) once compared me to the Pokemon “Ditto,” in that I kind of take the appearances of whoever I’m spending time with. I’m a bit of a sponge/filter when it comes to people; I’m constantly absorbing and shifting.

My chosen family is my greatest influence, though, all my friends who’ve stayed connected over time and distance. My Goody Night family taught me to use my voice. One group I’m part of, affectionately called soup fam, in turn taught me about how to think more before I speak, and also to leave toxic spaces. AICHO artists taught me to embrace my identity. My influences are groups.

What keeps you in the Twin Ports?

Our region can function as a nice incubator space for arts and innovation. There’s a lot of room to experiment with your creativity and due to our small size, this place presents a lot of opportunities to really consult community members and work with people to make art happen. I’d also say that the Twin Ports has its strong subcultures, but among those, there’s not necessarily a setin-stone, “established” artist community. You won’t find an artist “elite” like in larger cities, but the quality still exists … so I’ve thor- oughly enjoyed building up my career alongside artists both young and old, emerging and established. While I wouldn’t say it’s super easy to break out as a visual artist here, if you’re willing to push your limits and take down barriers for yourself and others along the way, you’ll find that the arts scene here is really in its infancy and that even at an individual level, you can help it grow. There’s so much that hasn’t been done that should be and I’ve carved out a philosophy in my artistry and organizing that looks at “What hasn’t been done yet?” and “What is missing?”

What words of wisdom do you live by?

Gosh … there’s quite a few great things I’ve heard in my life. I’ve learned a lot from books. “The Prophet” by Khalil Gibran is one of my first favorite books. From the Minnesota book “We Know How This Ends: Living While Dying,” I found the quote “Legacy is an act of ego, teaching is an act of faith,” among other words of wisdom.

From a cultural standpoint, I’ve learned a lot in ceremonies and from elders about our resources and the way we appear in the world. The water we drink today, through many processes, is the exact same water our grandchildren will taste, what we use today is what our descendants will also have to use. With that in mind, the philosophy is this: Always leave things better than you found them.

That leads me to the old circus adage that seems to permeate our lives, “the show must go on.”

What do you do? (job, community involvement)

I’m the preschool director at Hartley Nature Center. I had the honor of creating and opening Hartley Nature