On Wheels and On Point – FoCo Food Truck Ralley Series

by Rebecca LaPole

What is the Food Truck Rally? “It’s basically like having one huge, complete, awesome restaurant that serves everything,” said Taylor Smith, owner of The Silver Seed food truck, and representative of the FoCo Food Truck Alliance. Smith and partner Sarah Ladley, owner of Ba-NOM-a-NOM, have been in charge of planning the City Park Rally Series this year. There are other “trucks that have helped our cause and put in time of their own to make this all possible,” Smith said.

The variety of food represented at the City Park Rally Series is definitely the epitome of selection. Ba-NOM-a-NOM serves fruit-based soft serve, The Silver Seed is Fort Collins’ first vegan truck and known for their paninis, tacos, and lemonade, Common Link creates burgers and sandwiches and serves fantastic “links” (sausages), Tramp About is American contemporary, BuzzThru has espresso and smoothies, Fresh makes oven-fired pizza, La Piadina makes Italian flatbreads, plus there’s mac n’ cheese, corndogs, kettle corn, and much more.

The Food Truck Rally has been around for a while, and Smith said, “It started years before I was in business as a food truck owner, and I wanted to do what is common in other big cities, so we started to have a couple rallies here and there in City Park that kept growing in popularity. Lots of people came each week, and the City loved the revenue and the culture that came with it.”

“This year, we are doing the rallies with music sponsored by Yellowbright, Sugarfox Records, Scene Magazine, and the Mishawaka. We’ll have a mobile bike shop, The Bike Wrench, which will be fixing flats, the face painters will be back and we’ll have a few other random, sporadic things happening each week,” Smith said. This is also the first year the City has allowed the rallies to happen every Tuesday. Outside of the rallies, the City was trying to push a proposal through that would require the food trucks to park more than 100 yards away from an established restaurant. However, that was killed for now and the City is working on what laws they are going to impose on the trucks in the future. (Check out the online video interview at scenenoco.com where Anthony Cross discusses this issue with Taylor Smith).

The food truck scene is growing at a rapid pace in Northern Colorado. Smith said, “It’s crazy actually, every week or so a new food truck is opening. There’s obviously a market for it here, people love the food trucks. There’s only a few good breweries to park at, as far as spacing goes, so we’re working slowly towards creating an area of town where there’s all these food trucks together. My favorite part is the community aspect, and how we’re part of the food culture. We make it so the restaurants have to bring up their game.”

The City Park Rally Series begins the day after Memorial Day on Tuesday, May 31 with music by Sugarfox Records Artist, Shaley Scott, and continues throughout the summer, every Tuesday night from 5:30 PM until dusk in Fort Collins’ City Park until September.

Smith said, “Let’s be real, there’s no other event on Tuesday where you get local music, have dinner cooked for you, you can throw a picnic blanket down, and be with the community … It’s a good night, laid back, and the coolest people are there.”

For more info visit: focofoodtruckrally.com,

facebook.com/FoCoFood TruckAlliance