More food trucks are moving into Olmsted County (2024)

ROCHESTER — Food trucks from all over Minnesota have been flocking to Rochester in recent years.

As of May 14, 2024, 54 mobile food unit businesses were licensed through Olmsted County for the 2023-2024 season. With the influx of food trucks, the area has also accumulated a wide variety of cuisine. There are a plethora of Mexican and taco food trucks, but there is also Mediterranean, Japanese, American and more. There are also chain restaurants with food trucks like the Rochester founded Chick-fil-A Tri-State Food Truck that ventures all across Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.

A majority of these trucks are from Rochester, but there are vendors from Byron, Eyota, Lake City and more.

Some food trucks are even making their way from the Twin Cities metro area into Southeast Minnesota.

For example, Brick Oven Bus is a food truck out of Eagan that recently devoted an entire truck to servicing Southeast Minnesota.

Why did Paris Rosen, owner of the Brick Oven Bus, want to move into the Rochester area? The city’s brewery scene, Rosen said. Breweries give food trucks a chance to meet a new audience in an accessible way and hopefully develop that audience into something more.

“We're just looking to branch off of that as we plant our roots in Rochester,” Rosen said, adding that might include cooking for different business functions, business parties and more. “(It) takes time to grow that audience and our presence down there. … (And to) get everyone's attention first.”

Maya Giron / Post Bulletin

Rosen said business has been going well since moving into the area at the beginning of May. She said the market has similarities to the Twin Cities, just with new places and faces. The business prides itself on giving customers good food, but more importantly a good experience.

“The people are great, similar to the Twin Cities, but not identical,” Rosen said. “It's an interesting group of people in Rochester, and we're really enjoying it so far. They're really happy to have us there. The reaction we got from most everyone has been awesome and we’re excited.”

The local food truck landscape has changed over time.

Prior to 2022, while food trucks were required to be licensed by the state of Minnesota, Olmsted County did not require county-specific documentation to sell food.

But after COVID, the number of food trucks kept increasing, according to Cody Miller, environmental health manager at Olmsted County Public Health Services.

“The main issue with that is we can't really do enforcement if we don't hold the license,” he said. “So we would have to basically say you've got all these problems and send it to the state for them to deal with.”

To be able to better deal with the increasing numbers, the county introduced its own license.

Maya Giron / Post Bulletin

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Food trucks can get a license for a single day or up to 10 days. After the 10-day permit, the time period jumps to 120 days of service.

The licenses are annual and must be renewed every year. An annual inspection is also required to ensure rules and regulations are followed properly.

“That gives us the ability to kind of track and cheer, inspect and enforce as needed and basically keep track and tabs on what's going on. Our goal is to protect public health,” Miller said. He added that before the county had its own license, it couldn’t enforce any regulations. So, if a food truck came in with something needing to be fixed or cleaned, county workers couldn’t do anything.

In addition to working out regulatory issues other things have changed over time, Miller said food trucks weren't always a popular idea, especially with brick-and-mortar restaurants downtown. To help with that, the city created its own ordinance about when and where food trucks can set up downtown.

“When they first started coming into the city, there was some strain with brick-and-mortar businesses, because brick-and-mortar is paying the taxes and all the other fees that the local food units aren't,” Miller said.

Lily Dozier / Post Bulletin

But what is it like to own a food truck and how does that differ from a brick-and-mortar shop?

One of the biggest benefits of running a food truck is the ability to move locations, area food truck owners say. They can reach a larger audience due to the constant movement. Food trucks like the Chick-Fil-A Tri-State Food Truck have been seeing major success by being in a different location every day.

“It's just been a neat experience to do something that's very unique,” Matt Stockdale, who owns and operates Chick-fil-A Ear of Corn at 1201 S. Broadway Ave. in Rochester, told the Post Bulletin last year. The popular fast food restaurant has 30 food trucks across the country, including one based in Rochester that moves throughout the tri-state area. “... We're able to serve so many guests across three different states. Our team has done an exceptional job and we just love having the opportunity to do this.”

WinCity Wings, which sells food inspired by the city of Chicago, has had increased success after moving from the southeast side of town to Elton Hills Drive. The high foot traffic encourages more business.

“We took a year off and now we have a new location," Gaston said. "I liked this location mainly because over there we had three (other) food trucks. So I thought this was good for options with us trying to get our feet under us.”

While the freedom to move from one location to another helps a business expand its reach, it can also cause wear and tear to the food truck itself, and maintaining the truck can be both costly and inconvenient. Plus there’s always the added worry of a breakdown while traveling.

For example, Rosen said she’s had to switch starts at a gas station before and there’s a litany of things they have to do just to keep the trucks running.

“We don't disappoint people,” she said. “That's really important to me is to never, ever disappoint someone when they're expecting our truck to be there.”

Food truck owners like Rosen also know the importance of balancing the food business with the vehicular side of things. He views his company

“We are 50% of a food company, and the other 50% is a trucking company, and that's one of the big things we pride ourselves on,” said Rosen. “We are very good at operating a fleet of trucks and making sure that the truck with the cargo gets to the location on time, every time. We’re like the post office, and that's if it's snowing, if it's raining, if it's hot, if it's really cold, we're always going to be there.”

Prep work is also important for food trucks. Once the truck is on-site, there is no getting something that was left behind.

“You definitely want to make sure you have everything on board before you leave home base so that there are no issues if you're traveling to an event somewhere and then all of a sudden, you realize you forgot your cheese, and you can't make any pizzas, that would be a big problem.” said Stephan Jennebach, owner of Firebrick Bread Wood-Fired Pizza.

Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin

For Firebrick Bread Wood-Fired Pizza, prep work is especially important. The food truck has a set number of “dough balls” made in advance that serves as the base of the pizzas. These dough balls are prepped the morning before an event and they ferment in the fridge for at least 30 hours before they are cooked. When they run out of dough, they are done serving for the day. A typical day at a brewery, Jennebach and his crew can go through 80-120 dough balls, but that number jumps up to 160 or more when he is at a farmer’s market.

The biggest uncontrollable business partner for food trucks is weather. It can affect travel, profit and even how many people stop out during the day.

“Weather is super unpredictable and you just have to combat it the best you can,” Zach Welle, manager of the Duck Truck, said. “If it rains, you're not going to have anyone so you have to hide your menu so you don’t have to redo it and when the sun comes out, you reopen.”

The trucks begin their season when the weather warms up and go until the winter weather starts. Minnesota’s harsh winters can make business hard during the colder months.

Some food trucks don’t go out if the weather is bad, but other trucks like Firebrick Bread Wood-Fired Pizza will cater events and go out in all weather. They have adapted and made it easier to work events in unfavorable weather.

“We have to be very careful with the weather catering events will happen either way, rain or shine unless the customer decides to cancel or move the event to a different date,” said Jennebach. “... Unless there is a thunderstorm or tornado warning or anything like that, we would still go out and sell at a brewery where we know there's going to be people sitting inside.”

Maya Giron / Post Bulletin

Maya Giron / Post Bulletin

Lily Dozier / Post Bulletin

Lily Dozier / Post Bulletin