Tigerton gets tasty with food truck rally

Tigerton Main Street suffered a blow when it had to cancel its annual Independence Day festivities, and it was due to take another hit later this month when officials decided to cancel Applefest, a favorite in the community for years.

However, officials came up with an event to help with the financial loss, and on Sunday, five food trucks lined up for Tigerton Main Street’s first food truck rally.

Among the more unusual items were Rolleaz, a food truck that served up a variety of tastes inside a spring roll, including buffalo chicken, pepperoni pizza and macaroni and cheese. There was also a food truck dedicated entirely to cookie dough that had the first space in the row as visitors slowly came over from the Embarrass River Campground.

Tigerton residents John and Amanda Hunholz brought their 11-month-old daughter, Hannah, out to enjoy the nice outdoor weather and sample some of the cuisine. Amanda Hunholz got the pork nachos from Aftershock, a barbecue-themed food truck from Manawa that was once a bus, while John Hunholz enjoyed a pulled pork sandwich.

“This was something different to try,” Amanda Hunholz said. “It’s a nice day to get outside. We’re planning to get cookie dough afterward.”

She added that it was nice to see such an aromatic event come to Tigerton.

“Usually you see something like this in the big cities,” Amanda Hunholz said. “It’s cool that they got them all together to come out to little Tigerton. It was definitely creative.”

While there were plenty of smiles at the food truck rally, there were a few frowns as folks had to wait for the beer from Stubborn Brothers Brewery, which was delayed coming from Shawano. The beer was Tigerton Main Street’s source of revenue for the rally, according to Trisha Hoffman, the organization’s treasurer.

“We had to cancel our other events, and we’re working off of donations, so we didn’t have the money coming in during the pandemic,” Hoffman said. “I’ve been wanting to bring something like this down here for a while (at the campground) because it’s beautiful out here.”

Having a food truck rally brought about an event that could easily be held outside and maintain social distancing, according to Hoffman, even though some lines started getting long quickly. She knew the campground would be busy on Labor Day weekend, and the event was far enough away from the Shawano County Fair to allow both events to flourish.

“We knew we’d at least have the campers to come check it out,” Hoffman said, “but it looks like we’ve got quite a few locals here, too.”

With all the participation, Hoffman anticipates bringing the food trucks back next year, where hopefully they will add to the existing events that had to be called off in 2020.

“We might do a different weekend. We might do a fall and spring type of thing,” Hoffman said.

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com