Taste of Cove Food Truck Park breaks ground

By BRITTANY FHOLER

Cove Leader-Press

Copperas Cove will soon be home to a food truck park, named Taste of Cove Food Truck Park,  located at 105 W. Avenue E, between RNC Construction and the Copperas Hills Food Mart. 

The Copperas Cove Chamber of Commerce and business owner Tasha Roberts held a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday afternoon on the vacant lot to mark the next step in the process of opening the food truck park. 

Roberts was joined by her husband, Scottie and their children, as well as Dale Hull with RNC Construction, engineer Matt Wilburn, Interim EDC Executive Director Diane Drussell and Will Jackson, the realtor who sold the property to Roberts, for the first ceremonial shoveling of dirt. 

Roberts and her husband are veterans with a combined 50 years of service, and Tasha currently works for the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at the University of Texas in Austin. Roberts also owns the children’s consignment boutique, Babies N Things on Avenue E, as well as the Sporty Dogg food truck. 

The Taste of Cove Food Truck Park has been a dream of Roberts’ for years now, and with it, Sporty Dogg will now have a permanent home in the park. 

Roberts said she was nervous about moving forward with the project at first but eventually decided to just go with it and began looking for a place when she stumbled across the vacant lot between RNC Construction and the Copperas Hills Food Mart. After purchasing the land, Roberts sketched her idea and then partnered with an engineer who brought her vision to life. 

“It was a simple sketch that turned into something that I think the city will be very proud of, and I’m hoping that you all will be proud in the end,” Roberts told the crowd gathered at the ceremony Wednesday. 

The park’s designs were displayed at the groundbreaking ceremony and featured on the ceremony’s programs for guests to view. 

The park will feature space for eight food trucks, a covered pavilion with tables and seating for customers to sit and dine, as well as an ADA-accessible restroom. Roberts explained that the park will not have parking, but instead, customers can use the downtown area streets for parking. The goal is to have a walk-up park. 

There will be a handicap accessible drop off spot to provide easier access for customers who need handicap access. 

Roberts said that when she first announced the food truck park and opened spots for food trucks, there were several who contacted her and paid to reserve a spot. As the start date for the park kept moving, Roberts ended up having to refund the deposits that the vendors had made for the park. She added that now that the food truck park is officially moving forward again, it shouldn’t be too hard to get food trucks to sign up and reserve a spot. 

“It may be a little hard now, but the thing is when people see something tangible, it’s easier to kind of talk them into doing it than when you’re just saying ‘Hey, we’re putting the park over there,’ and they can’t see anything physically happening,” Roberts said. “I think once Dale starts digging up some stuff around here, people are going to start asking questions.”

Roberts estimated that once the work began on the lot, the food truck park would be finished in about two months or so.