Saddle up, partner. There’s a food truck rodeo in town—and it’s here to stay. Opening today in the Lakewood Shopping District, Country Fare Durham (1920 Chapel Hill Road), is the Triangle’s first food destination devoted solely to food trucks.
Owner Steve Frasher was inspired to open the venue out of his own love of food truck rodeos (a popular foodie event where multiple food trucks gather together) and to support the Triangle’s strong food truck scene. Every day will feature a different line-up of the area’s best trucks, which sling sought-after
like top-notch ‘cue, pizza rolls, tacos, dumplings, and mole-sauced enchiladas.
“We want to create a hub so there’s one place to experience three or four food trucks at a time. It’s a hub and a home base for the food truck scene,” Frasher says.
But unlike a typical food truck experience, where you must wait in line and then skulk off to find a curb to post up on, County Fare offers tables and seating for up to two hundred. It’s one of several amenities that Frasher set out to include as part of County Fare’s elevated food truck experience.
“We’ve got tons of seating, nice bathrooms, beer, and the food trucks give you pagers, so you don’t have to stand outside the truck and wait for them to yell at you,” he says. “You can wait at your table.”
Once you’ve snagged a table and some grub, wash down your eats with one of thirty beers on tap, which are dispensed through a pouring system called Bottoms Up, which funnels beer upward through a magnetized hole in the bottom of the cup. It’s lauded for its efficiency, but it also looks cool, and with thirty beers in a row, Frasher boasts that it’s the largest continuous Bottoms Up bar in the world. You’ll find local brews from the likes of Bull City Ciderworks, Durty Bull Brewing, and Big Boss Brewing, but if domestic cans are more your thing, there’s PBR and Budweiser, too, as well as wine for non-beer drinkers.
Food and drink already add up to a good time in our book, but there’s an added fun quotient with County Fare’s backyard barbecue-meets-county-fair vibe, complete with chill tunes, string lights, cornhole, and a bocce ball court. County Fare’s name is also a subtle nod to its location’s origins: from 1902–32, the Lakewood Shopping Center was a small amusement park that was part of the last stop on the Durham Trolley line. Frasher plans to paint murals depicting carnival scenes inspired by vintage photographs he purchased through Preservation Durham.
Country Fare opens for lunch and dinner today, April 18. At lunch, look for enchiladas from Hole Mole, pork-y (and some vegetarian) dishes from Pork in the Road, and N.C. sausage sandwiches from Baguettaboutit; for dinner, there’ll be tacos and nachos from Poblanos Tacos, Cubano sandwiches and empanadas from
, and gyros and Greek specialties from Mama Voula’s.
For more information, hours, or to check the calendar for the daily food truck line-up, click here.
