NEWS

New food truck: Paddy Wagon Grill

Gregory J. Holman
GHOLMAN@NEWS-LEADER.COM
Jarrod Dowdy, Jennifer Yount and Mark Yount are three key people at Paddy Wagon Grill, which recently opened at SGF Mobile Food Park on North Glenstone Avenue.

The latest addition to SGF Mobile Food Park in central Springfield has a sheriff’s badge, pretend bullet holes and food with criminal names. Welcome to the Paddy Wagon Grill, which opened for business Aug. 21.

The truck is stationed near the entrance of the mobile food park at 836 N. Glenstone Ave. It is one of a variety of new trucks that have started serving up street food in Springfield this summer.

Paddy Wagon serves a classic comforting menu, mostly sandwiches with jokey names that evoke a hint of criminality: The Prison Break Tenderloin ($7.25) is a hand-breaded pork loin on a kaiser roll with lettuce, tomato and garlic aioli; the Trigger Man’s Fried Meatloaf ($7.25) is a gourmet meatloaf slab ornamented with sautéed onions, Swiss cheese and a “smoky BBQ” take on ketchup; while the All-American Burger ($7) comes on a toasted brioche bun.

“It’s not fusion food, it’s a diner menu,” said Mark Yount, the owner.

Yount’s background is in local fine-dining restaurants. He said he learned to cook as a 5-year-old running a flat grill at a cafe his mother owned in the 1970s.

He also served in the U.S. Navy and trained at a St. Louis-based branch of Le Cordon Bleu cooking school.

For Paddy Wagon, he teamed up with Jennifer Yount (they’re married) and former catering chef Jarrod Dowdy, among other family and friends.

On Saturday, Paddy Wagon competed in a dessert competition at the MO Food Truck Festival, winning the Sweet Treats award, one of four awards handed out at the event.

The winning dessert was Fiery Cheesecake: frozen cayenne-pepper cheesecake bites topped with blueberry compote and both purple and green basil.

Yount said that Paddy Wagon would be open 4-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday for this weekend’s Street Machine Nationals event, taking up temporary residence farther north at 1854 N. Glenstone Ave. to be closer to the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds.

More info

•Search “The Paddy Wagon Grill” on Facebook.

•417-813-2328

•Lunch: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday-Friday

•Dinner: 5-8 p.m. Thursday-Friday

•Saturdays: 11 a.m.-8 p.m.

•Note: Hours are approximate.

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