Winchendon Food Truck Festival returns for fourth year

WINCHENDON – One of the busiest people at Saturday’s Food Truck Festival in Winchendon wasn’t one the many vendors.

Jim Abare, the town’s health agent, spent several hours early Saturday morning inspecting each food truck and food vendor taking part in the popular event. Abare was inspecting the food truck belonging to Thee Taco Dude when the Athol Daily News caught up to him.

“We’re going to be in every single truck or booth that has food,” said Abare. “Depending on the kind of operation they have, we can spend a few minutes, or we can spend a good half hour or 45 minutes checking things out.”

Abare said the period leading into the summer months – which includes the Summer Solstice celebration and food truck festival – is one of the busiest of the year when it comes to issuing temporary permits.

“It’s obviously busy with all the festivals and, in recent years, there have been more events at the Winchendon Community Park,” he said. “Food has definitely become a big part of all these events.”

Abare has been Winchendon’s health agent for nearly 28 years, but he doesn’t approach any inspection as being routine.

“It’s been good,” he said. “I love this community. I’m from here, so it’s rewarding and never boring. You can go for 27 or 28 years and still run into things you never expected.”

“This is our fourth season,” said Jon Paradise, one of the partners in Thee Taco Dude, about an hour before the official start of the festival. “We have a commissary out of Rutland. our barbecue is there, there’s a farm stand there, there’s ice cream, and we have a little taco trailer there.

“Once we show up,” added Paradise, “we take about 20 to 30 minutes. We’re pretty fast. Most of our food is already hot and prepared at the commissary. Then, we start prepping everything and make sure we’re ready for our inspection. We’re very clean and organized.”

Paradise and his assistants didn’t have to wait long for customers, some of whom were lining up before noon, when the event began.

“The number one item,” he said, “tends to be the beef birria with consome.”

A total of 15 food trucks were parked end-to-end on three sides of G.A.R. Park, while 35 vendors of all types occupied the park itself. The weather, which started out a bit drizzly, improved throughout the day, right up until the 7 p.m. finish.

The battle of the bands included a number of local groups including Faceless Hobos from Winchendon, Sheep Dip from Rindge, New Hampshire, Plead the 5th from Templeton, Rock 201 from

Northampton, and eventual winner Down Daizy from the Leominster area.

Greg Vine can be reached at [email protected].