Chef Mark Cosgrove started cooking for a living in parking lots at Grateful Dead shows during the early 1990s. He was 14 years old, following the band across the East Coast and sharing an old Blue Bird school bus with a friendly couple he met along the way.
Those parking lots functioned as massive open-air markets, with thousands of vendors offering homemade goods, from clothing and crafts to food. Cosgrove joined in, selling $1 sandwiches to support himself on the road.
“I was the little kid who cooked grilled cheese,” he said. “So, there’s a sandwich called the Parking Lot that I still serve at almost every restaurant I go to—it’s a gourmet grilled cheese.”…