Christian said he asked the City of Springfield if food trucks could set-up in residential neighborhoods after he was asked to set-up in a Kettering neighborhood.
“There is nothing in our current code that precludes them from being in neighborhoods,” Logan Cobbs, assistant to the Springfield city manager said. “We did give the green light. We saw this as a convenience to our neighborhoods and a quick dinner option for the community.”
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Local food trucks like The Christian Bros. Meat Company, The Painted Pepper and EAT have been setting-up in the Ridgewood, Glenco Estates and Northridge neighborhoods.
“I really have enjoyed it,” Louie Ortega, owner of The Painted Pepper food truck, said. “People are good about practicing social distancing. They get to talk to their neighbors, a little bit afar, but it’s nice to still get to talk to a person in real life.”
March is typically the start of the food truck rally season, EAT food truck owner, Chad Druckenbroad explained.
Many of his events at local breweries and companies were canceled due to Gov. Mike DeWine’s statewide stay-at-home order, so Druckenbroad said he made adjustments by going to local neighborhoods.
“For us, it wasn’t as detrimental as it was for some restaurants and other food trucks - this is their only source of income full-time,” Druckenbroad said. “Luckily, we hadn’t stopped working our other jobs yet because we weren’t in the full swing of things.”
Allowing food trucks to serve food to local neighborhoods has been “absolutely amazing,” Christian said.
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When food trucks go to local breweries and coffee shops, “we are only hitting such a small demographic of people,” Christian said.
He explained that this has allowed him to grow his follower base and introduce local residents to his food that have never tried it before.
All three food truck owners said they are thankful for the positive response and support from residents.
“The community of Springfield has been more supportive than anything that I could ever imagine in my entire life,” Druckenbroad said. “It’s literally hard for us to keep up because we have so much business.”
The city of Springfield is participating in “ongoing discussions regarding food trucks in residential neighborhoods,” Cobbs said. “We’re using this as a trial run and we will dive back into our zoning codes and ordinances once we’re out of this current crisis.”
To see when The Christian Bros. Meat Company, The Painted Pepper or EAT food truck will be in your neighborhood, search for them on Facebook.
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