Portland’s street-food scene is known throughout the United States for its popular food trucks and carts. Inspired by this culinary culture, a local food truck is providing gourmet meals for the public in Chico and throughout California.

Mayhem Gourmet Grilled Cheese sandwiches can be found at local areas, including the Thursday Night Market and Fork in the Road.

After three years running the business, Jeremy Wolfe, owner of Mayhem Gourmet Grilled Cheese, can be found preparing a gourmet grilled cheese sandwich in the truck’s kitchen, where he makes some of the public’s favorite items on the menu.

“This truck has always been well-received by the public,” Wolfe said. “We always have a huge crowd, and we work really hard to make our food the best. We do a lot of catering, private events and festivals as well. We’ve been up and down California.”

Wolfe’s food truck inspiration stems from his five-year-long stay in Portland, where he could always count on the food trucks even in the worst weather.

“The Portland scene is amazing,” Wolfe said. “It has entire city blocks of food trucks. There’s not a bunch to do in the rain, but there are always food trucks open.”

Following his move back to California, Wolfe was unsure of what to do for work. But after being influenced by Portland’s food truck scene, he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

Now local to Chico, Wolfe and his truck work all over town.

“Around town, we don’t really have a set location that we park at,” Wolfe said. “We frequent the Thursday Night Market, private events and parties.”

Aside from Chico, Mayhem also travels across California.

“We recently started to get heavy into festivals,” Wolfe said. “We travel as far as Los Angeles. We hit up the Monterey Music Festival last year, and that was just amazing. We really got hooked on festivals.”

With a family of his own, Wolfe initially set out to create food suitable for adults as well as children.

“I have a couple of small children that are very picky eaters, and anytime we came to the market, they just wouldn’t eat anything except for grilled cheese or macaroni and cheese,” he said. “That’s pretty much what it boiled down to — I wanted (to make) something for kids.”

As a family man and member of the collective food scene in Chico, Wolfe and his crew serve all types of sandwiches.

“We really love this community,” Wolfe said. “Part of our mission statement is to bring the community together through food. I really want to bring the community (together) and show my kids what it’s like to be a part of something bigger than yourself.”

Blaine Ball can be reached at [email protected] or @BlaineHBall on Twitter.