Ann Basu

 

With SuperSnack closed for the first weekend of the semester, students will—for the second year— be able to tuck into free snacks at Food Truck Maineia, which opened last night and continues tonight on Dudley Coe Quad.

The event has doubled in size since last year, with three trucks last night and an additional three at 10 p.m. today.

All three trucks from last year’s event returned for a second term. PB&ME, Portland Pie Company and the Yum Bus catered last night, and Pinky D’s Poutine is featuring tonight.

Miriam Fraga ’18, assistant director of student activities and the event’s organizer, declined to disclose the trucks coming tonight, citing the surprise factor for students.

Fraga said the success of last year’s event served as motivation to expand.

“We thought, ‘why not bring it back, but let’s be bigger and better this year,’” Fraga said.

The food offered will largely be Maine-themed.

“[The event] will also give students an opportunity to try food from Maine that they might not have access to otherwise,” Fraga noted.

On Thursday night, Jayna Robotham ’23 said that she enjoyed the food on offer from PB&ME.

“They have a really good peanut butter and jelly. It was a good peanut butter and jelly ratio, a little bit more jelly than peanut butter, like 60-40,” Robotham explained.

Alex Tesson ’23 noted that the lines for all three trucks were long, and suggested that more trucks might lead to shorter waits.

While SuperSnack will be unavailable Friday and Saturday, Interim Director of Dining Ken Cardone expects it to return next weekend once student workers return to normal work shifts.

Cardone anticipates that at least 70 more students will fill the necessary positions to operate the dining halls at normal capacity.

“Before we can bring students on board and put them on the schedule, we need to provide training, so you need that window between arrival and the first SuperSnack to get training done,” Cardone said. He also noted that many returning student employees wait a few weeks to settle into classes before scheduling their shifts.

While Cardone explained that Student Activities contacted him about the possibility of opening Super Snack for the first weekend, he expressed his support for the alternative that the food trucks provide.

“We’re fortunate that we have food trucks available. They fill the void until we can get staffed,” Cardone said.

When asked about Food Truck Maineia returning next year, Fraga expressed her support.

“This year with Nate [Hintze, director of student activities] deciding to make it a bigger event, if it turns out well, it’ll continue being a really big event,” said Fraga.

Fraga said the money for the trucks would come out of the Student Activities budget, but Hintze declined to comment on the total cost.

An employee at Portland Pie estimated the cost of the pizza delivered last night at $1,700.