CAMP EDWARDS, MA — Three airmen, a Coast Guardsman, three construction workers and the leader of a base groundwater cleanup program all walk up to the window of a food truck.

foodrunner food truck cape cod

Photo By: Cape Cod Times/Christine Hochkep

This isn’t the lead-in to a joke. It’s the latest phenomenon at Joint Base Cape Cod.

FoodRunner opened 14 weeks ago inside the gates of the Upper Cape military base through a one-year pilot agreement with the Massachusetts National Guard.

Since then Rob Mador and his crew have been serving up a menu of breakfast and lunch items from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. from a 35-foot yellow food truck to a welcoming group of military and civilian customers at the intersection of Generals Boulevard and Richardson Road.

“I usually get the salad, but today I’m rolling the dice and trying the pulled pork,” said Master Sgt. Robert Segrin, on his lunch break from the 102nd Intelligence Wing on Tuesday. “The food truck is always fresh and quite tasty. It’s not your typical takeout.”

Sandwiches on the menu have military names such as “The General,” a burger topped with bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion rings and barbecue sauce, as do items such as “The Chopper,” which is a fresh fruit salad.

FoodRunner also features daily specials such as “The Tree Hugger,” a spinach, onion, pepper, tomato, avocado and provolone cheese wrap with chipotle aioli. The menu may be viewed at https://foodrunnerusa.com.

Mador pitched the food truck idea to the military as an opportunity to employ and train disabled veterans, Gen. Gary Keefe, executive director of Joint Base Cape Cod, said. Seeing that it fit with Adjutant Gen. L. Scott Rice’s goals of “people, mission and partnership,” Keefe said the military worked to find an available spot at Camp Edwards for the venture.

That might sound fairly easy on a 22,000-acre military installation, but much of the land is accounted for under federal and state leases, Keefe said.

Mador is responsible for paying for the truck’s utilities and any approved cosmetic changes to the site and pays $100 each month to the U.S. Coast Guard Morale, Welfare and Recreation Fund to offset money the food truck may be siphoning off from the Coast Guard-run golf course.

Find the entire article at capecodonline.com <here>