Bake’n Bacon food truck’s owner is opening a bacon-themed bar-restaurant in South Philadelphia, replacing Devil’s Den

South Philadelphia bar Devil’s Den will wrap its 14-year run on Sunday, Oct. 9. Erin Wallace, a lifer in the Philadelphia beer scene and a national board member of the Pink Boots Society, wants to move on.

A new owner, with a new concept, is waiting in the wings at 11th and Ellsworth Streets: Justin Coleman, who owns the popular Bake’n Bacon food trucks. He hopes to open the Bake’n Bacon restaurant this winter after a redecoration that will brighten and open the space; the trucks will remain.

Coleman who has offered jobs to Devil’s Den workers, said he was aiming for photo-ready surroundings, with a foliage wall with a neon sign reading, “Home of the bacon-goodness,” whitewashed brick walls with murals by Los Angeles-based artist Miles Regis, and new lighting. Food will be served on branded cutting boards.

The idea for a bacon-theme food truck — and now a bacon-theme restaurant — came to Coleman in a dream. Born in Cape May into a family that loves to cook, Coleman, 37, initially pursued a career as a singer-songwriter and moved to Atlanta, where he managed a restaurant.

In 2016, back in New Jersey, he started planning a food truck. “I wanted to do like healthy food with great, fresh sauces,” he said. Plans were moving forward when his younger brother Derek died that October.

One night, about two months after his death, “he visited me in my dreams,” Coleman said. “It seemed so real. I could smell bacon in the dream. He was on a food truck, but I wasn’t really paying attention to the food truck. I was like, ‘Derek, we thought you died.’ We were arguing in the dream, ‘I really need you to come back. We’re losing it without you,’ and he said, ‘This is your food truck.’ It was based on bacon.

“So I woke up from my dream. I thought I wrote down bacon, bacon, bacon, but I managed to get down one bacon and the rest was scribble because I was half-asleep,” he said. He called his sister in the morning and told her about the dream. “I said, ‘I think I have to figure out how to do a bacon theme truck.’”

His initial menus, he said, “weren’t the greatest. So I scratched them and kept going and going and going.”

In mid-2019, he opened Bake’n Bacon. During the pandemic, with catering and events idled, he drove into neighborhoods and cul-de-sacs to take orders. Now that events and catering jobs have returned, there are two Bake’n Bacon trucks zigzagging the region. The menu is truly bacon all over — “our bacon sandwiches, our bacon caramel sauce, bacon bourbon sauce, bacon-infused barbecue sauce, chocolate-covered bacon, and chocolate covered strawberries with bacon crumbles.”

During the truck season, he says he uses 200 to 250 pounds of bacon a week. With the restaurant in the equation, he said he would easily top 500 pounds.

Coleman said he would have a mural installed on the front of the building, where the current Devil’s Den sign is now to depict the mix of people in Philadelphia, “showing the beauty in the diversity that our great city represents. This we hope will become a staple and a place where people will want to take and post pictures.”

He is planning to be open Wednesday to Sundays, with brunch on weekends and a monthly Sunday gospel brunch.

As a Black-owned business, Coleman said, “I want to bring Black excellence to fruition, giving a memorable experience and vibe.”