There’s a new food truck riding into town, and it offers something unique.
Headed up by Michael Jurgielewicz and Stephen “Biggie” Ammirati, the enthusiastically named Duck Yeah! truck offers up a menu of tasty duck and duck-adjacent items from a Pennsylvania-based sustainable duck farm with Long Island roots.
The Jurgielewicz family has been in the duck industry for four generations, starting in 1933 when Bronislaw and Katarzyna Jurgielewicz opened Jurgielewicz Duck Farm in Moriches. After the farm was sold in the early 1980s, their son and grandson, Joe Sr. and Joe Jr., moved to Pennsylvania and started Joe Jurgielewicz & Son, Ltd., a sustainable duck farming business.
The son of Joe Jr. and the director of business development for Joe Jurgielewicz & Sons, Michael is no stranger to the North Fork, having visited family in Mattituck his entire life. Jurgielewicz, whose background is in hospitality, wanted to try his hand at a food and beverage project.
“I had this idea of a ‘duck truck,’ where it would be one of the original Long Island duck farmers back on the island serving their duck,” Jurgielewicz said, noting that many of the ducks the company raise are descended from the breed of Pekin ducks the family first raised on Long Island.
Jurgielewicz was introduced to Ammirati, the former owner of Ammirati’s of Love Lane who now operates The Catered Fork food truck, and the two collaborated on a duck-centric menu. “Everybody’s all about farm-to-table, so we went farm-to-truck,” said Ammirati.
The goal for the menu was to provide easy-to-eat dishes and also to entice those who are unfamiliar with duck. “We say there are two types of duck eaters out there,” Jurgielewicz explained. “The virgin duck eaters who have never had it before and the ones who love duck and order it at every single meal. Once we get them to try it, they love it.”
He noted that the items on the menu, such as quesadillas, wings, tacos and even a duck burger, are foods that customers will be familiar with, just not in duck form. Even the fries are cooked in duck fat.
Duck Yeah was first introduced to crowds in August at Brick Cove Marina’s late-summer weekly family nights in Southold. Ammirati said that the Peking duck tacos and the duck confit quesadilla have been big hits, and that the Banh mi sausage sandwich also proved popular.
Currently, Jurgielewicz and Ammirati are working on a schedule for the truck, which is actually a trailer and available for catering events.
