One of SF’s famed street food pioneers Curtis Kimball, first known as the Crème Brûlée Cart Guy and later as the Pancake Party Guy, died last week from an aortic aneurysm.

If there was some sort of San Francisco food Hall of Fame, it would likely have inducted Crème Brûlée Cart Guy Curtis Kimball. Kimball was not a chef (though he wore a chef’s hat), but a laid-off construction worker when he launched the Crème Brûlée Cart in 2009. His crème brûlée was a craze, often infused with Grand Marnier or Baileys Irish Cream, in the early Twitter era when he'd just tweet out his roaming locations, and throngs would come.

Kimball joined the food cart and truck mania of the late aughts and early 2010s, and even helped establish the wildly popular Off the Grid food truck rallies where his Crème Brûlée Cart remained a staple until 2016. But Mission Local reports that Kimball died last week of an aortic aneurysm. He was 46.


Sadly, Kimball is survived by his seven-year-old daughter Harper, four-year-old daughter Eloise, and even more sadly, his son who is expected to be born this summer. He also leaves behind his spouse Nicole Belanger.

“He was always so eager to put on a party for people without any expectations of getting anything in return,” Belanger says in the Chronicle’s obituary for Kimball. “He just had a desire to connect with people and to be a force for others to connect with each other.”


A GoFundMe for Kimball’s family has raised nearly $42,000 since this weekend.

Curtis Kimball was born in Prescott, Arizona in 1978, and moved to the Bay Area after high school. Aside from his seven-year run with the Crème Brûlée Cart, he also threw a series of virally popular Pancake Parties in Bernal Heights during the difficult days of the pandemic, serving free pancakes in his signature chef’s hat.


“You don’t know the good things that might happen from putting yourself out there, but you know some good things will happen,” Kimball told the Chronicle during one of those events. “If you spread good vibes to people, good stuff happens.”

A memorial service for Curtis Kimball will be held on Friday, February 28 beginning at 2 pm in Sebastopol. RSVPs are highly encouraged.

Related: Creme Brûlée Cart Guy Throws Free Pancake Party, Bernal Heights Flips Out [SFist]

Image: @hoyhoy via Twitter