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Pandemic pop-ups: Food trucks thrive through dine-in restrictions

| February 10, 2021 1:03 AM

“There was no master plan as a response to the pandemic,” said Capt. Baz Lloyd, owner of the Captain’s Cod Company food truck and fisherman. “But it kind of worked out that way.”

With ongoing restrictions on indoor dining, more food trucks changed practices, sprouted up or rolled into Grant and Adams counties to serve hungry patrons.

The Corndog Company started in St. George, Utah, and worked its way into Arizona, Idaho, Oregon and Nevada. When Othello’s Quigley family tried it in Utah, they said they immediately wanted to know how to start it up in eastern Washington.

It’s the home of the honey dog, said co-owner Kai Quigley. They use the franchise’s sweet cornbread-esque batter and drizzle their dogs with honey.

“People think it’s weird, but when you tell them to try it, I can’t remember a time where a guy didn’t come back and didn’t like honey on their corn dog,” Quigley said. “It’s awesome. Everyone’s smiling when they come up.”

Other popular menu items are deep-fried cheese bombs and deep-fried oreos.

The Corndog Company of Eastern Washington opened its doors in Othello in October 2020, but it’ll cater pretty much anywhere.

“We’re super grateful for the support we’ve received because we could not do this without the community we have here,” Quigley said.

Captain’s Cod Company sprung up in Cashmere, Washington, by two Alaskan fishermen. Capt. Baz Lloyd and Capt. Shaun Andrew have more than five decades of commercial fishing experience between them.

“Our food is unique in that we also own the vessel it comes off of,” Lloyd said.

Andrew’s vessel, The Northern Leader, hooks the cod in the Bering Sea. From there, the company picks it up in Seattle and brings it to Cashmere to hand fillet and bread it.

The Captain’s Cod truck is in a new town every day, Lloyd said. It got approval to start serving Grant County in October 2020.

“Wanting to leave the ocean, so to speak, and become a full time landlubber, we kind of kicked around this idea, a semi-retirement gig,” Lloyd said.

Moses Lake’s Tacos El Rey started as a food truck on Broadway Avenue in April 1994. Five years later, it opened indoor dining. The restaurant moved to its current location, farther east on Broadway, in 2004.

As a food truck first, it already had takeout options in place, said front-end manager Izolda Folis. However, it usually closed the trucks during the coldest months out of the year. During the pandemic, it was just a couple of weeks.

The Corndog Company of Eastern Washington was really fortunate to not be affected by the pandemic when it was starting, Quigley said. It received a “crazy amount of support,” with people traveling from Tri-Cities and even Seattle to try dogs. Since it opened shop, it has served more than 3,000 customers.

Captain’s Cod Company has worked out well, Lloyd said. People can social distance and get fish and chips to go, and not have to go into an establishment.

“It’s been something that most communities really end up celebrating,” he said. “It’s something in these times that they can enjoy that is out of the norm and not even really offered.”

The pandemic is baked into the food truck’s philosophy, he said. It moves about more than the average truck, in a fresh town every day, keeping cognizant of local economies. It is only in a town once a month to reach diverse mouths and to not put a stress on other businesses trying to manage through the pandemic.

“That is not our goal, to take a huge slice of the pie in one town,” Lloyd said.

The business will only continue to grow, said Quigley. By the end of this month, The Corndog Company of Eastern Washington will have a second truck to expand its reach.

In addition to Chelan and Grant counties, Captain’s Cod Company has been approved to operate in Douglas, Benton, Franklin and Okanogan counties. It plans on maintaining and expanding upon those approvals each year.

Tacos El Rey, too, will keep trucking along.

“(We) just hope it gets back to normal,” Folis said. “It’s not going to come back to normal anytime soon, but relatively normal.”

Sam Fletcher can be reached via email at sfletcher@columbiabasinherald.com.

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Sam Fletcher

The Corndog Company of Eastern Washington co-owner Kai Quigley frying a dog in Othello.

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Sam Fletcher

Trenton Cutforth (left), Rheese Meza (middle) and Kai Quigley pose in The Corndog Company of Eastern Washington truck in Othello.

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The Tacos El Rey truck on Broadway Ave. in Moses Lake.

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Sam Fletcher

The Corndog Company of Eastern Washington on First Ave. in Othello.

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Sam Fletcher

Kai Quigley dips a dog into The Corndog Company's secret batter.