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The food truck park concept has thrived for decades in cities like Portland, Seattle and Austin, but it hasn’t yet caught on in Colorado. But that may be changing. In February, Wheat Ridge welcomed Moonrise Garden Bar & Food Truck. The project is a collaboration between Blaine Bagao, owner of Adobo, a brick-and-mortar food truck serving Filipino-New Mexican fusion cuisine on North Federal Boulevard, landowner David S. Heller and contractor James Anders of SustenaBuilt.
Together, the three transformed a former gas station on West 38th Street into a food truck park, where guests can enjoy food from the Adobo food truck and up to three other mobile restaurants while relaxing by a fire pit under one of 10 pergolas (which can be reserved online) surrounded by greenery installed as part of the community revitalization initiative Renewal Wheat Ridge. There’s also a designated play area for children, and the park is pet-friendly, with picnic tables equipped with carabiner anchors for dog leashes.
The walk-up bar has two sliding doors: one for cocktails and one for beer: the former features draft beers from local companies like New Terrain and Station 26, and the latter serves up drinks hand-picked by Dylan Zaretto, one of Bagao’s longtime collaborators and winner of Bartender of the Year at the Colorado Restaurant Association’s 2023 Industry Spotlight Awards.
Blaine Bagao and Dylan Zaret. Photos by Blaine Bagao and Akasha Arnold.
According to Bagao, food truck park concepts like Moonrise haven’t caught on in Colorado because unpredictable weather makes the business model difficult and risk-averse landlords and investors aren’t willing to bet on local culinary entrepreneurs pursuing unconventional concepts and service formats. Unlike food halls, traditional food truck parks rely on strong relationships between park owners and vendors to keep the experience fresh. That’s why Heller hired Bagao. Bagao is an industry veteran whose background includes running a culinary program for events at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Folsom Field and starting a food truck event production company called Happy Belly Productions with the help of his girlfriends Akasha Arnold and Amanda Stocker.
Other food truck parks that have closed or relocated on the Front Range include Run Westy Run Beer Garden in Westminster, which was open for a few months in 2022 but hasn’t announced a reopening. Meanwhile, La Plaza Marketplace in Aurora has several food trucks parked on-site, but large gatherings are no longer permitted in the parking lot. Instead, the marketplace, which officially opened this spring, has several vendors serving customers inside the store.
But there are some successful models. Hank Grant and Justin Riley own Boulder’s Raybuck Collective and Reno’s Improv City, both multipurpose venues that double as community gathering places. The indoor-outdoor venues feature rotating food trucks, a daytime coffee bar, collaborative workspaces, and events like live music, quizzes, and stand-up comedy, encouraging patrons to linger and have fun.
Layback Collective. Photo by Hailey Gray.
Raybuck Collective has been successful for about eight years now, and the owners are grateful to Boulder city representatives for taking a chance on the project, but Grant said the permitting process is “terrible.” He doesn’t blame anyone. “We just… [the city’s] “It’s boxed,” he says.
Raybuck faced unique zoning complexities due to its location near restaurants, residential areas and right on a bike path in order to obtain a liquor license for the tavern, a live music permit and a food truck permit. “We had to go through the whole city process of petitioning the mayor and city council to get permission and basically get them to pass a new law to say in our particular zoning code that we could open and do these things,” Grant says.
In Reno, Improper City faced similar red tape when it converted a public alleyway into a private space where visitors could cross from the building to the venue’s outdoor space. “Cities obviously want these innovative concepts, but they’re not prescribed to embrace anything innovative or creative,” Grant says. “If you don’t have advocates within the city or the business community who are willing to give you a chance, I think it’s going to be a very difficult, uphill battle.”
Until recently, My Brother’s Bar owner Danny Newman was in limbo on his new project, Full Tank Food Park, in West Colfax. A collaboration with business partners Lily Walters, Moonflower Coffee’s Sam Salomon, and Jason Haygarth, Full Tank was set to open as a lounge, bar, and food truck park in November 2023. But just a month after opening, it was temporarily closed due to zoning permit issues with the City of Denver.
Photo: Hailey Gray
Moonflower Lounge with a full tank. Photo by Ethan Pang.
But in early May, Full Tank announced that interior plans to renovate the coffee lounge and bar had been approved, so the store would close for construction and would reopen as a coffee shop in fall/winter 2024. Newman says they plan to apply for the appropriate exterior track permits once the reopening is complete. [city of Denver] “To show them what they need to do to make this successful in the long term,” he said, “and they’re very calm, very open. I think they see an opportunity.”
Bagao sympathizes with anyone struggling to get a permit, and says that while his experience was good, his past dealings with Denver city officials were significantly slower than his current deal in Wheat Ridge. That’s mainly due to Denver’s relatively large business population. At one point, Bagao recalls, his application was sent to state-level officials and hung in limbo for weeks. At another point, he had to juggle 10 email exchanges, multiple visits to City Hall, and daily check-ins with city representatives to get approval — all while operating his existing business. “It’s like going to the gym constantly and trying to set a personal record on your third visit,” he laughs.
Moonrise adobo. Photo by Blaine Bagao and Akasha Arnold.
Despite the challenges, Bagao sees the park as a way to revitalize the food truck community here in Colorado through more moderate financial metrics. Having worked with festivals, farmers markets and community events for years, Bagao believes the practice of some venues setting rental fees or taking a percentage of vendors’ sales is rampant.
While some venues require food truck owners to pay up to 20 percent of a day’s sales to operate on-site, MoonRise typically asks for about 10 percent. In exchange, MoonRise provides scheduling and promotion, as well as the park itself. Renovating the park cost about $250,000. “If I could do it for free, I would,” Baggao says. “We’re opening the doors to the food truck community, and that’s what I’m most proud of.”
In addition to parking his adobo truck at Moonrise, Bagao recruits from a network of more than 50 local vendors that are announced weekly. “You don’t have to fill up your calendar; we never do,” he says. “I’m going to tell you the stories of some of the coolest entrepreneurs you’ll ever meet. I know their families, I know how hard they work, and I know how hard it is to make it happen.”
Moonrise Garden Bar & Truck Park is located at 6875 W. 38th Ave, Wheat Ridge. Follow them on Instagram and Facebook for the latest updates.
