WATERVILLE — Food truck enthusiasts may get a chance to try dishes from a variety of food vendors at one location along Kennedy Memorial Drive this year if a Waterville couple’s plans are approved.
Jianpo Lu (PoPo) and her husband, Lingjie Gu, love to cook and are in the process of applying for city permission to open PoPo’s Food Truck Court in a vacant lot at 121 Kennedy Memorial Drive. They plan to serve traditional Chinese food and rent out space for up to 10 other food trucks.
“We’re really excited,” Lou said Friday at the site of the new food truck her husband designed. “Hopefully we can be open year-round.”
Lu, 38, plans to open the court in September, but it could be later depending on development of the site, which also includes parking, tables and tents, a small fenced-in children’s play area and landscaping.
Currently, about 10 food trucks are licensed to operate in Waterville, City Clerk Patty Dubois said.
“They come and they go,” Dubois said Monday, “and it’s gotten busier the last few years. Food trucks have become a lot more popular in the last five to 10 years.”
Ms. Lu and her husband, 32, who has experience designing kitchen cabinets for a major Chinese company, will initially serve traditional Chinese “noodles” served with a variety of sauces, and “dumplings” stuffed with shrimp, pork, beef and chicken, but Ms. Lu said she plans to eventually add other traditional Chinese dishes.
“I love this kind of food because it’s different and so tasty,” she said.
Zongzi, a special Chinese dessert eaten during the Boys’ Festival, is one of the dishes Jampo “PoPo” Lu has created and will be serving at his PoPo’s Food Truck. Photo by Jampo “PoPo” Lu
Lu earned her Master of Business Administration from Thomas College in 2018 and is currently enrolled in the Culinary Arts program at Kennebec Valley Community College, where she earned her Associate’s in Early Childhood Education two years ago. Lu earned her Bachelor’s in Business English from China in 2008. Lu works as a Substitute Educational Technician III at George J. Mitchell School, where her oldest son attends, and runs a Discovery Play Group at KVCC.
Lu, who grew up in China and worked for a major education company for eight years, visited the United States, including Maine, in 2012. Wanting to continue her education, she decided to return to Maine with her husband in 2017. Their first child was born in 2018, but then the pandemic hit, making it impossible for them to return to China.
“The people here are so nice, especially in Maine,” Lu said. “I’ve been to Pennsylvania and New York City, but the big cities are too crowded. Here, the air is fresh, there are forests and nature.”
The couple, who have two sons, Gu Tianqi, 6, and Gu Tianyi, 3, visited the property on Friday with Lu’s mother, Wang Xiurong, who was visiting from China. Lu said Wang had bought the land for his daughter and son-in-law.
The family loves to travel in Maine, and while visiting the seaside last summer, Lou said she saw a food truck court with a variety of food options and it was very busy. After talking with the owner, she was told that a food truck business is small and easy to run and doesn’t require hiring as many people. She was told the more food trucks there are in one location, the busier the court will be, Lou said.
Lou decided to take a bold step and open a food court in the town his family had come to love: Waterville.
“I love all the schools here and I love the people here,” Lou said. “My mom says, ‘They say hello to me here.’ In Waterville, everyone says ‘hello.’ I want to do something great for other people and for this city.”
She said she and her husband are getting ServSafe Food Manager certification for the business.
The property is located in Contract District/Commercial-A and could be used for a variety of purposes, including a food and beverage establishment that closes by 8pm.
Jianpo “Popo” Lu (center), holding his 3-year-old son Tiandi Gu, stands in front of a food truck with his husband Lingjie Gu, their 6-year-old son Tianqi Gu and Lu’s mother, Xiulong Wang. If the plans are approved by the Waterville Planning Commission, they plan to serve traditional Chinese fare at Popo’s Food Truck Court. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel
The food truck proposal is scheduled to go before the City Planning Commission for an informal pre-application review on June 25. City Planner Ann Beverage said the commission could consider preliminary and final plans for the project in July.
The land on which the food court will be built is about 1/2 an acre. The family also owns an adjacent parcel behind it on Maryfield Avenue, but they have no plans to house food trucks there. Combined, the parcels are 1 1/4 acres, according to Beverage.
Jeff Allen of AE Hodsdon Consulting Engineers in Waterville is working with Lu on the plans. He describes the project as follows: Motorists would enter the court from Kennedy Memorial Drive and exit by turning right on that road. A fence would be built along the side of the lot to separate it from neighboring homes.
“We don’t want to cause trouble for our neighbors,” says Lou.
She said she received a lot of help developing her business from Christina Dodge, an adviser with the Maine Small Business Development Center. Lu encouraged anyone interested in renting space for their food truck to email her at Luzhanpo0702@icloud.com.
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