Off Route 202, fluttering flags and sandwich boards announce the fare of the Fryer Truck – everything from fried corn on the cob to fresh seafood and ribs.
Proprietor Jerry Willis knows food. He’s been the owner of two restaurants prior to opening the food truck – Powder Mill Pond Restaurant and most recently Marzano’s Trattoria in Peterborough. When Willis closed Marzano’s, he decided to try a different approach to the food and beverage game.
This is his second year serving food from a fry truck, parked in front of his parents’ Bennington home. Over the winter season, Willis works at New Hampshire Ball Bearings, but last summer, and again this year, he’s taking time off to run the truck. And with a year for people to realize he’s there and give the truck a try, he only expects business to get better.
The Fryer Truck – a play on “Friar Tuck” of the Robin Hood legends – offers the usual food truck fare of burgers and fresh-made fries, onion rings and chicken tenders, but there are a few items on the menu that are slightly more unusual.
Willis will fry up a hot dog on the grill for the less adventurous, but the truck’s signature food is the “ripper” – a deep-fried hot dog. It gets its name from the hot dog casing “ripping” as its fried.
The “ripper” was a must-have for Willis’ wife Janet Willis, who is from New Jersey, where the restaurant Rutt’s Hut made the ripper famous.
There’s also an offering of fried seafood, including scallops, clams, shrimp and fish.
If you’re into fried vegetables, you can try fried corn on the cob, or go slightly more upscale with a fried fish taco, a new item on the menu this year.
Also new this year is what many would consider a fried food staple – fried dough.
Connie Lester, an employee of the food truck, said she lobbied for the addition of fried dough, and thought it was crazy it hadn’t been on the menu from day one.
“I told Jerry, ‘People will come in on two wheels for fried dough,’” Lester said.
The menu is smaller and quicker to cook, but at its heart, it’s not wildly different from his previous businesses, Willis said.
“It’s not all that different. You still have to strain the fryers and clean the grill, cook the food. I just don’t have to worry about the front of the house anymore,” Willis joked.
What is different, he said, is the atmosphere that comes from running an outdoor food stand, compared to a sit-down restaurant.
The customers vary from what Lester affectionately refers to as the “local yokels” who come by regularly to those stopping by at the food stand from Route 202. One customer came by with an enormous bird on his shoulder. He apparently wasn’t bothered when the bird didn’t want to get back in the car, and rode away with it perched on his side mirror.
There are other adventures too, Willis said. Last year, the truck remained open through three tornado warnings, and every thunderstorm of the year seemed to roll through during the truck’s lunch and dinner shifts.
“And here we are in a metal box,” Lester said.
Willis said he likes working in the food truck better than in a kitchen. There’s less room, but he’s got a 360-degree view from the windows, including a viewpoint of Powder Mill Pond.
“Most of the time in a kitchen, you don’t even get a window,” he said. “I’ve got this view. You can look out on the pond, listen to the birds. You can’t beat that.”
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com.