Pocatello Food Truck Roundup, which will feature 20 trucks, opens for the year
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POCATELLO — Beginning this week, the Historic Downtown Pocatello Pavilion will play host to a gaggle of food trucks and nearly endless dinner options every Monday during the spring and summer months.
The event, which will run from 4 p.m. until dark each Monday through September, is entering its third year, with more food trucks than either past year, according to organizers Brian and Kimberly Zenger. What once included just six trucks will feature 20 this year.
Asked how the rotation is to be set for that number of trucks, Brian said with a laugh, “We want everybody here at the same time.”
While several of the truck owners decided not to attend Monday due to weather concerns, Brian said that within the next couple of weeks, the entire lineup will make regular appearances.
“By the end of the month, we should have all 20 trucks here,” he said. “And we’ll have a bunch of small bakeries and vendors here as well.”
The idea for the food truck roundup came when Brian and Kimberly, owners of Grandma’s Pantry, were struggling as COVID arrived in Idaho — like most other restaurant businesses.
“Everybody’s events were being canceled, and we were like, ‘How are we going to survive?'” he said. “We were talking to (the other food truck owners), and we were like, ‘Maybe if we’re all in one spot, we’ll get a crowd, and we’ll all make money.'”
Brian described the atmosphere of the event. He said that anyone attending the roundup will be treated to a family-friendly experience with classic music — much of it from the ’50s — a plethora of food options, and places to sit either in the large grassy pavilion yard or one of dozens of picnic tables.
Along with the extended truck roster, this year the event added corporate sponsorship from East Idaho Credit Union. According to spokeswoman Bailey Foster, EICU prides itself on being a community-based organization that, despite being new to the Pocatello area, was excited by the opportunity to get involved in this event.
“We’re all about building a better life, not only for our members but for the community which we serve, and the great state of Idaho,” Foster said. “We love things that bring people together, and the food truck roundup brings all the people, the families — it’s a great event, and we love to support these types of things.”
As Kimberly said, the same 20 food trucks will be involved when, beginning this Wednesday, the Chubbuck City Hall will begin hosting its own weekly food truck events through September.
Although the Chubbuck events are not part of the sponsorship deal with EICU, Foster told EastIdahoNews.com that the credit union would be involved and willing to provide any assistance the small-business owners might need.