New food truck debuts at Rider

The latest offering adding to the dining experience at Rider University aims to bring not the students to the food but the food to the students.

One new food truck, Bronc Bites, is already open for business, with a second truck, Muscle Maker Grill, soon to follow in the near future.

“The benefits of having food trucks on campus is to help increase the food varieties on campus,” says Gourmet Dining Marketing Manager Anastasia Bischoff. “We feel that having multiple food trucks on campus adds value, variety and convenience to Rider’s dining program.”

Some items offered by the Bronc Bites truck are nachos, onion rings, chicken wraps and veggie burgers. The Muscle Maker Grill food truck will serve up healthy fit bowls and wraps, as well as fruit smoothies and protein shakes.

The location of the trucks will rotate from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Monday through Friday throughout various spots on campus. Students can track the locations of the food trucks by following @RiderFoodTrucks on Twitter.

The goal of the account is to not just to passively inform students but also to encourage them to be included in the food truck decisions of the day. “We want students to tweet at us if they have a specific location they would like us to park the trucks,” Bischoff says.

Students can pay for food from the trucks using cash, credit, Bronc Bucks or a meal exchange. There is a specific menu for the meal exchange that students can enjoy.

To get the community even more involved, there will be a suggestion box for customers to write down what they want to be included in the menu, and the Gourmet Dining team will look at all the slips of paper at the end of the week and feature the most requested item for the next week as a special.

The full menu for each of the trucks can either be found on the dining website or on signs near or on the trucks.

Gourmet Dining has implemented several new initiatives throughout the semester to offer students a fresh way to enjoy their dining experience, in addition to the food trucks. One recent change is that there is now mobile ordering for homemade pasta. Other additions include the new G-8 station located in Daly Dining Hall, where the eight major food allergens — peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, milk, eggs, wheat and soy — are omitted in the food choices and a teaching kitchen, where students will be able to cook alongside chefs invited by Gourmet Dining.

The reception for the food trucks have been positive, yet Bischoff is expecting that more buzz will travel amongst the community when the second truck formally opens.