Our Story

A story about two vegans opening a food truck, taking on cruise ships and circus concessions, then moving back home to Ohio to start all over again.

In 2013 Dustin wanted something else out of life. After years as a delivery driver his vegan lifestyle had him reexamine how he earned his income. Moving from Ohio to Texas, with his girl Meara in tow, he enrolled in a vegan/vegetarian culinary program. This opened up several cooking opportunities at popular Austin restaurants. After a few years in the restaurant industry, Dustin and Meara realized that they wanted their own food truck to share their type of food with the people of South Austin. But what food wasn’t being served up by the other vegan restaurants? Hotdogs. Isn’t that what Midwesterners are raised on? In 2016 they were backed on Kickstarter and soon enough, their tiny, swealtering hot, used food trailer was ready to open. And, one slightly tipsy brainstorming session later, it was named Doggie Style.

Dustin and Meara operated successfully for three years in Texas. The first year they were awarded Best New Business in Austin. The last year, they designed the modern trailer they operate now. In between, Doggie Style hosted three 4th of July hot dog eating contests and several other events and fundraisers for various nonprofits. But they dreamed of more traveling, more opportunities to see the other veg communities in the country. In Spring of 2019, they worked on the annual Hollistic Holiday at Sea and soon after another job presented itself in the form of a Circus.

2019 was the year of circus. For nine months they put their beloved Doggie Style food trailer into storage, bought an RV and traveled the country as a vegan circus concessions team. They started in California, traveled north to Seattle, east to Madison, and back South to Florida. While there they joined another animal free circus. Soon after, the pandemic caused the entertainment industry to close indefinitely. The time was ripe to revisit their dreams of bringing vegan hot dogs home to Ohio.

So here we are in Toledo. We go by Frankly Plant Based Kitchen, or Frankly for short. We strive to make the best versions of our food to serve to you where ever we set up. Frankly, we think y’all will love it.