The Crooked Spoon, one of the area’s first food trucks and one of the most consistent in food quality, will shift into park permanently following an event on Wednesday. Thereafter, owner/driver/chef Steve Saelg will focus his efforts on opening Crooked Spoon Gastropub, a conventional unwheeled restaurant at 200 Citrus Tower Blvd. in Clermont.

Saelg is aiming for a mid to late July opening for the new restaurant, which will feature menus that will change weekly, including the children’s menu. “I have four kids of my own,” Saelg said, “and I can’t stand it when they have the same crap on the kids’ menus all the time.”

This will be the first restaurant for Saelg, 39, but not his first time in a conventional restaurant. He cooked at the original K restaurant in College Park, a career change from the finance industry, and at Tavern on the Green in New York and the Citrus Club in downtown Orlando.

The truck, he said, will be sold. “It’s too much of a liability to have someone else out there driving it.” He said he won’t miss it. “The food truck has been probably the single most difficult thing I’ve ever done.” He said the “constantly running around,” not just to food truck events but also to pick up product, was “logistically very challenging.”

He also says the local food truck market is saturated. 

“I feel fortunate that I got in at the right time and I’m getting out at the right time,” said Saelg.

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