Pedro and Vinny's, the K Street burrito cart, inspires lines of lunching business professionals to snake around the block every weekday. John Rider, the Johnson & Wales culinary school grad behind the one-man business (neither Pedro nor Vinny actually exist) gabs with bundled-up customers about weekend plans, Super Bowl picks and most importantly, which of his myriad hot sauces they want on their burrito. Fruity or not? How hot? And now, he’s giving his customers a challenge.Despite the 30-bottle selection of fancy hot sauces (including Emeril’s Kick It Up red sauce and wasabi-green-tea sauce), almost every customer orders Rider’s homemade, Caribbean-inspired mango-habanero sauce, which sits in a Grey Goose vodka bottle. It's so popular, Rider recently got the thumbs-up to bottle it nationally. The bottler told him that the whole process, including nutritional breakdown tests and choosing the packaging details, should take about ten weeks. The only problem?
No name.
The only stipulation? It can't have anything to do with the trademarked Grey Goose vodka—which is what regulars largely associate with the sauce. Otherwise, Rider is open to suggestions. Email ideas to Caffejohn@adelphia.net. He wants to finalize the name and rough label layout by the end of February.
The winner will receive the first case of "Insert Name Here" for free. Visit Pedro and Vinny's over the next couple of weeks for brainstorming inspiration. You can sample the sauce, and any of the others, with his free tortilla chips, always available on the cart for snacking purposes.
On a snowy week like this one, check the Pedro and Vinny's website to make sure the cart's open.
Pedro and Vinny’s, 15th and K Sts., NW (south corner of K St.).
