COLUMBUS, Ohio — A number of businesses closed their doors during the pandemic, while others were able to hold on.
Elvin Cooper is no stranger to running restaurants of sorts.
He had a brick-and-mortar restaurant first. Then he moved on to operating a food truck.
He said research on how long it takes meat to digest in your stomach . . .90 hours.
“Most foods should take 24-hours in order to digest it.”
Learning that is what prompted him to switch over to eating fish. From there, he kicked off his food truck quest, serving food that was a little healthier.
Cooper has been running the food truck for about seven years now.
“The fish boat . . . that’s our signature sandwich. This whole business was built around the fish boat.”
That’s fish, cabbage, onions and tomatoes all on a bun slathered in tartar sauce.
The idea of uncooked cabbage on a fish sandwich stuck after making a mistake one day during a grocery run in the middle of a food truck festival.
He thought he’d picked up lettuce but instead picked up cabbage. The packaging was similar. So, he ran with it after finding it kept its crunch on the sandwich and was just as healthy.
For Cooper, running the food truck has been a labor of love, even through the pandemic.
Cooper said when the pandemic came, the workers he had quit and never returned.
He tried taking some gigs and running the truck solo, but that didn’t work out so well. He’s got a little help now, but he said he knows he can’t run the truck without help.
Thinking back, Cooper said not only did he need help, but he also needed a new strategy to stay afloat.
So he started making phone calls and then setting up in neighborhoods.
“The neighborhoods kept us alive. We would’ve been gone if it wasn’t for the neighborhoods,” he said.
Although he’s getting business, he said taking part in food truck festivals like Our Food Truck Festival keeps his hopes up.
The festival is designed to help Black-owned businesses who struggled during the pandemic get new customers and gain some additional revenue.
At least 3,000 people are expected to attend the second annual festival that was initially started during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For now, Cooper said he refuses to quit.
Instead, he’ll keep plugging away and serving up fish boats while he waits for times to get better.
