Asheville food truck to bring Indian food to Greenville

Another Asheville food truck will soon make its home in Greenville. Just a month after the owner of Chef Daddy'sannounced he would be moving his operation to the Upstate, the owners of Shakti Shiva, one of Asheville’s newer food trucks, have decided to move themselves south as well. Melissa Grunow and Gunasekaran “Guna” Vivekananthan see Greenville as a place where they can grow both their business and their family.

Greenville offers potential for business growth, they say, partly due to a larger population, a warmer climate and a food truck market that is just growing.

“It kind of felt like doors were staying closed for us in Asheville,” Grunow says.

Greenville also offers greater potential for Grunow and Vivekananthan’s future plans as well.

“We talked about doing a farm, and for that I think Greenville is very good because there is more flat land and area,” Vivekananthan says. “So the future for us would be to get a farm and a brick and mortar restaurant.”

Grunow and Vivekananthan have spent the past month working out the details of their move. They have already found space at Old Mill Commercial Kitchen & Commissary, and they are working on permitting. If all goes as planned, they hope to be open by the first week of February.

Grunow and Vivekananathan launched Shakti Shiva in October, but the two had been dreaming of the venture for much longer. The couple met while both were working at Mela, one of Asheville’s most popular Indian restaurants. Vivekananthan was leading the back of the house as kitchen manager and Grunow was a line cook.

The two quickly bonded over food, specifically locally sourced, high quality food. It didn’t take long for them to begin discussing launching their own venture. Originally, they thought of a farm that they would use to supply a restaurant. But then, Grunow read about the food truck wave sweeping the city and they decided to start there, offering traditional Indian food with a restaurant approach.They spent six months restoring and rebuilding their truck. They worked on it every day, while still working at Mela, and Shakti Shiva finally hit the streets in October.

“We wanted to give the same quality to the restaurant, to the food truck,” Vivekananthan says. “It’s fine dining restaurant quality food, but no roof.”

Vivekananthan and Grunow bring a chef’s touch to their food. The menu changes weekly, showcasing traditional dishes from both northern and southern Indian. Vivekananthan prefers to use the local farmers markets when they’re in season, building the menu around what he finds there each day.

In general, Shakti Shiva offers two larger entrée items each day, a chicken one and a vegetable one, both served with rice, salad and homemade chutneys, and a few side items. The pakoras (seasoned fried vegetables) and the samosas come highly recommended. In addition, Vivekananthan also features specials each day. Recent ones have included a lamb dish and a fish curry.

And the menu always includes chicken masala, with its creamy spiced tomato sauce, has become a customer favorite.

To understand the food though you have to understand Grunow and Vivekananthan. Both have had a long passion for food. Vivekananthan recalls spending hours in the kitchen as a young boy growing up in Tamil Nadu, in the southern part of India, helping his mom prepare the family’s food.

Later, he turned that passion into a culinary career. Vivekananthan attended culinary school in India, spending four years working in restaurants there. But he wanted to discover more about food and about the world. He spent a year in Maldives, learning the West Indies nation’s cooking traditions. Then, he moved to the Cayman Islands, where he spent 3 ½ years working in an American Italian restaurant.

Vivekananthan’s path led him to Chicago in 2010, where he worked in a higher end Indian restaurant. And it was there that he had an epiphany of sorts.

“When I seeing all the restaurants, they have many varieties but it’s not traditional, like a mom’s cooking at home,” Vivekananthan says. “I realize that OK, I am born and raise with Indian food, it is good for me to go on the same so I can bring more traditional things.”

But eventually the Chicago weather got the best of him and he decided to move south. He saw the job post for Mela and applied.

Grunow grew up equally passionate about food. She got her first job in restaurants at the age of 14 and spent the next decade working her way up the ladder at a large scale bakery in her native Wisconsin. When she reached the highest echelon she could, she decided to move on. She attended culinary school and worked at a local resort. Looking for a change, she moved with her daughter to Asheville two years ago.

Though she knew nothing of Indian food (there wasn’t any where she grew up) Grunow was drawn to it the moment she set foot inside Mela. Now, having worked and learned from Vivekananthan, she waxes poetic about the flavors, the spices and the culture.

Plus, she says, there is something universal about food, no matter its origins.

“Food draws people together,” Grunow says. “You can really touch someone’s heart with a good meal.”

Eventually, Grunow and Vivvekananthan hope to see through their dream of opening a farm with a brick and mortar restaurant. But for now, they are focused on the food truck.

Shakti Shiva is slated to open in Greenville the first week of February. The food truck will continue at least one Asheville service a week. Details about the truck’s Greenville schedule are forthcoming. For more visit the food truck’s Facebook page.