Recap: Truck Stop

On Thursday we held the first ever Truck Stop – a smaller, lunchtime version of What the Truck?! inspired by the food truck pods of Portland. The colder weather is coming and that means most of Edmonton’s food trucks will be closed until next year, so we wanted to try to extract the most out of our fall season as possible. Five trucks parked on 102A Avenue in front of City Hall to serve lunch from 11am until 2pm: Bo Thai, Drift, Eva Sweet, Fat Franks, and Smokehouse BBQ.

Considering it was a cold day, we were quite pleased with the turnout! Lots of people even took advantage of the seating available – next time we’ll try to get the heat lamps and bonfires going! Churchill Square is a gigantic venue so we were happy to be located on the avenue instead, though the square itself did get busier after noon, with the final zumba class of the year. And of course there was a lot of foot traffic, with people walking to and from their offices.

Photo by Brittney

The vendors all did quite well, though Smokehouse BBQ seemed to be the most popular. Normally located in Nisku, they received a warm welcome from Edmontonians, selling more during the three hours of Truck Stop than they would have over four days in their usual spot! Their food was tasty – we had the three rib mac and cheese and the bacon bomb sandwich.

The line-up at Smokehouse BBQ

Bacon bomb and three rib mac & cheese

We don’t have any more What the Truck?! events planned for 2011, but we are going to be doing some planning for next year in conjunction with the vendors. Clearly the demand is strong! Thanks to everyone who came out to Truck Stop for lunch. Thanks also to the City and the vendors for helping us make it happen on such short notice. We’re looking forward to future food truck extravaganzas!

You can read Sharon’s recap here and you can see the rest of my photos here. Brittney’s photoset is here!