Gypsum food trucks will be moving soon to make way for Highway 6 roundabout project

With Gypsum preparing for a big roundabout project at the intersection of Valley Road and U.S. Highway 6, several of the town’s food trucks have to find new homes.

Most of those trucks will move to a town-owned site near the Interstate 70 interchange. That site was once the site of the Gypsum Grill. The town tore down the old building in 2023 in hopes of luring a buyer. That hasn’t happened yet. For now, the site will be used for the food trucks that now occupy the Valley Road/Highway 6 intersection.

Gypsum Town Manager Jeremy Rietmann said those trucks will have to use generators for their electricity.

The exception will be Itzy’s Coffee, which will move to another town-owned site just north of the Liquor Shop, which is just below the nearby convenience store.

Rietmann said that site has enough on-site electrical power for the coffee shack to do business, and enough room on Bertroch Lane to accommodate drive-through business. Itzy’s will be closed for a week starting April 25, then reopen at the new site.

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Both town-owned sites are temporary homes for the businesses. Rietmann said a private property owner is working with the town on a site along Highway 6 for a “mobile vending court” for a more permanent home for the town’s food trucks.

The town has a schedule set for the roundabout project. Work is expected to begin June 5, the last day of school, with the roundabout set to open to traffic Aug. 18, the first day of the new school year. But Rietmann acknowledged that not all of the details have been nailed down.

Rietmann said that one parcel needed for the project has a “willing seller,” but the process continues for the other two needed parcels. Still, he said, the town will be able to “take possession” of those parcels with compensation for those property owners.

The bid opening for the project was April 11, and Rietmann said those bids were “significantly higher than we’d budgeted.”

Town officials are now in the process of modifying the project to reduce costs, or find other contingencies, he said Those modifications may also include deferring other projects scheduled for this year.

Those options will be discussed at the April 22 meeting of the Gypsum Town Council.