Skillet Street Food is ready to roll again

Quick, call the Health Department! Skillet Street Food, Seattle's den of takeout iniquity, will roll again Jan. 16 after a string of health-code violations last fall forced a two-month hiatus.

Now, fresh from the Paris Hilton School of Public Relations, the bad boys of gourmet have parlayed their public embarrassment into brand new digs, lots of attention and a gig with the only thing on wheels that's naughtier than they are: the Rat City Rollergirls.

To catch you up, Skillet Street Food opened last August, serving braised this and caramelized that out of a roving Airstream trailer to foodies chasing their GPS signal from Westlake to Ballard and back again. It didn't take long for the Health Department to catch up with them, though, and they shut down owners Josh Henderson and Danny Sizemore in September for lack of a proper permit, a business plan and a functional hand-washing sink.

Then, taking advantage of a perceived loophole, Henderson and Sizemore hit the road again, operating as a "private tasting club" -- but they didn't get away with it for long. Busted again in October, they retreated into the culinary underworld, taking their pork belly and bacon jam shenanigans into clandestine events with other rebel chefs, like One Pot's Michael Hebberoy.

Amid all the drama, Skillet attracted a significant following of folks who consider eating poutine to be a fundamental human right, paperwork be damned. The street food vendors started to receive national attention, despite only about 25 days of actual operation, even landing on Food & Wine Magazine's list of "100 Tastes to Try" in 2008. "All this attention has been nice," Henderson said in a recent phone interview, "but I'm afraid that at some point, we're actually going to have to cook something."

The guys are in fact getting ready to cook up a storm in the new year. A second trailer is being outfitted to supplement the maiden craft (which is now being towed on a flatbed truck after its back end fell off in traffic one day). Permission has been granted for a Wednesday stop on Utah Street in Sodo, and Henderson says they're a heartbeat away from securing a location near Westlake Center downtown. They will also return to their former Westlake location Thursdays at Thomas and Boren, and will continue service Fridays in the parking lot of Ballard's Old Pequliar pub.

At the Rat City Rollergirls' Seattle Rust Riot exhibition Feb. 2, roller-derby fans will be treated to a special menu, tailor-made to drunk spectators of girl-on-girl tussles: smoked mac and cheese, organic hot dogs (with cream cheese and bacon jam toppings) and, of course, the beloved poutine.

At the time of this writing, Skillet still didn't have all of its proper permits in place, but Henderson promised they were "right around the corner." And when the health inspector comes around this time, all Henderson wants to do is show him the papers and feed him a hamburger.

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