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Food trucks are on a roll
Co-owner of Jessie’s Smokin’ NOLA food truck said the business model allowed her and her husband, Jessie, to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant. COURTESY PHOTO
Denver and the suburbs are a hot spot for mobile grub BY JESSICA GIBBS JGIBBS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
For Andrea Rayford and her husband, a food truck was the best means to reach their overall goal of opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant. “It was basically a lot cheaper to
start a food truck,” she said. Traditional restaurants often come “with a pretty hefty lease,” she said. So, when her chef husband, Jessie, wanted to open his own place, the Parker couple found a food truck on Craigslist, spent six months fixing it up and started working at the local farmers market. Eventually, the couple started getting requests from breweries or corporate locations for their truck, Jessie’s Smokin’ NOLA, to come to them. They dish up cajun food inspired by Jessie’s upbringing in New Orleans.
As business grew, they expanded their coverage area north, got licensed in Denver and began participating at Civic Center Eats. The annual event gathers dozens of trucks in Denver’s Civic Center Park to serve lunch on certain days of the week. “We were all over the place,” Rayford said. “That’s the great thing about a food truck.” Today, the couple has that brick-andmortar shop — which shares its name with the food truck — in Centennial near Arapahoe High School.
A booming industry Once branching into Denver, Jessie’s Smokin’ NOLA joined the epicenter of the local food truck scene. In the last six years the number of food trucks operating in the city has grown by 369 percent. Excise and Licenses Director Ashley Kilroy, with the City and County of Denver, said approximately 700 food trucks were licensed in the city as of late May and they expected to reach 750 by the end of the summer. SEE TRUCKS, P12
THE BOTTOM LINE PERIODICAL
“It’s safe to assume, and maybe it’s me being overly optimistic, that we’re going to see a better version of (the Nuggets) next year.” Tim Connelly, Denver Nuggets president of basketball operations | Page 14 INSIDE
VOICES: PAGE 8 | LIFE: PAGE 10 | CALENDAR: PAGE 9 | SPORTS: PAGE 14 VOLUME 92 | ISSUE 30