WALDOBORO — Monhegan resident Matt “Captain Mattie” Thomson has been providing the boat-to-plate experience for the public well before it ever became a trend. For the last 24 years that he’s lived on Monhegan, he has captained at various times both a groundfish boat and a lobster boat. At the end of the fishing trip when everyone else would go home, Thomson would fillet up some haddock or hake he’d just caught and then sell it through a little trailer by his house.

“It was originally an exercise in selling our own fish,” he said. “The original menu was fish tacos and fish and chips and that was it.”

With a guy he’d hired to run the trailer on the island, Thomson operated that side business roughly a decade. Then, some life changes began to make him consider moving off island.

“I have a seven-year-old kid and I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be out here when he has to go to high school,” he said. “We were originally thinking about bringing the food truck out to Monhegan, but it’s too big to come out here. Then, we thought we might be able to expand the business a little bit on the mainland.”

A jack of all trades, Thomson has had chef training on a number of vessels.

“I’m used to cooking and I like to cook,” he said.  Justin Barker, another chef Thomson met when they were both working on a research vessel out of Boothbay, is the day-to-day operations of the new food truck, Hot Fat which sits on Route One in Waldoboro next to the Delanos Seafood Market.

While Thomson provides the lobsters, they’ve worked out a symbiotic relationship with Delanos to supply the fresh fish on the menu.

Thomson said they’re still working out the kinks in the truck itself. “It’s like buying an old boat,” he said. “We’ve replumbed it and rewired it. We’ve done everything that you do if you buy a new boat and still, you have to work some things out.”

Mainland customers seem to have different tastes than island customers he’s observed. “It’s so different wherever you go,” he said. “Out here on Monhegan, fish tacos and sweet potato fries were what everybody wanted, but in Waldoboro they want cheeseburgers and hot dogs.”

Barker added, “With my fish tacos, it’s all fresh greens from Beth’s Farm Market and handmade sauces,” he said, noting that fish and chips are still their signature dish.

Thomson said will likely shut the truck down in October like most of the other food trucks do, but once they get some traction, they might move it around more during the seasons.

Follow Hot Fat’s daily updates on Twitter: twitter.com/hotfatfish1

To see all of the food trucks that operate in the area visit our guide: Gourmet Food Trucks In The Midcoast

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com