Students returning from winter break noticed a North Campus icon missing from its usual spot — the Louie’s Lunch food truck.
While some students took to the “Any Person, Any Meme” Facebook page to worry about the truck’s whereabouts, the reason behind the disappearance turned out to be rather benign.
Previous owner Ron Beck was transferring ownership over to a former employee, Evin Munson.
“The truck closed in the fall, when winter break started. Everything has been running and operating as it previously was, it just changed ownership,” Munson told The Sun.
Munson bought out the company shares in the fall and became the new owner of Louie’s Lunch food truck, but declined to share the transaction cost with The Sun. Beck had been operating the food truck since 1997 and wanted to retire, according to Munson.
The new owner started out as a cook in the truck before a promotion to truck manager.
“[Beck has] been doing it for 23 years, I think. He just wanted to retire from it, and I’ve been working for him for eight years and I’m just taking over the ownership,” Munson noted.
The Sun was unable to reach Beck for comment.
While Munson had hoped to open the truck earlier this week, the truck remained closed through Wednesday.
“The only reason we are opening a few days later than typical is because the City of Ithaca has put into place more strict regulations in regards to food trucks and we had to adhere to the standard they set,” he said. “We had to do that in order to open and it just finished yesterday.”
The famed food truck is set to reopen at 11 a.m. Thursday, on schedule, and continue to serve students as normal.
According to the new ownership, there aren’t many changes planned for the future.
“Nothing about the truck is planned to change, it will be the same as ever,” said Troy Smith ’20, a current employee.
“It’s basically going to run exactly the same,” Munson confirmed. “If it’s not broke don’t fix it,”
However, the truck will be operating cash-only for the first few days of the semester. The issue is a temporary one, according to Munson, due to a processing issue with the credit card company that handles their transactions.
“The first couple days will be cash-only … the credit card company we go through is finalizing applications to get it set up. We will be back with that within a day or two.”
According to Munson, hungry students will be able to return to the red truck to order from its secret menu today.