A Narrow Path to a Food Truck Revolution

My journey through this industry? It’s anything but conventional.

At nine years old, I started working the PNE and carnival circuit with my parents and an industry icon named Bingo Hauser. There I was, slanging ice cream, corndogs, and hotdogs like it was second nature. Summers growing up meant the Merritt Mountain Music Festival, where I learned a key lesson: if your dad’s essential, you’ve got free rein—being Jack Hunter’s son had its perks.

High school was different. I spent those days glancing over my shoulder, waiting for that inevitable, booming “JAAAAAY” from the back door. It didn’t matter what I was doing or who I was with—when Dad called, we were all dragged outside to tackle whatever task he needed to be done, willing or not.

After graduation, I swore I was done. “I’m not sticking around to work carnivals and sell food forever,” I told myself. It's funny how life has other plans.

At 17, I answered a job ad and traded corndogs for a suit—eyebrow piercing and all. Hired on the spot, I worked in Downtown Vancouver while staying with my grandma and rumbling to and from the city in Jack’s diesel 2001 Ford F350 on Mondays and Fridays, and I didn’t complain much. It turns out that I was a pretty good door-to-door salesman, and six months later, I was off to Toronto, chasing my path.

I arrived full of hope, ready to carve out my place in the world and become my own man. The eyebrow piercing gave way to a beard I’d only dreamed of growing. I had an apartment with Nigel, my ride-or-die who’d come with me from Vancouver. We were on the verge of something big—or so we thought.

Life had a curveball ready. The moving company lost everything: my bed, my PS2, all my clothes. Nigel and I shared a futon for two months while we scrambled to get on our feet. We’d settled in Etobicoke—Martin Grove & Eglinton—and if you knew Toronto in 2005, that wasn’t prime real estate. My boss dropped us at the apartment and then casually mapped out our commute on the TTC map with a pen when 

 “Wait,” I said, staring at the directions, “this says across the entire city, taking four transfers each way.” 

“Oh yeah,” he replied, “I couldn’t get the space I wanted, so we’re in North York at the head office.”

For a year, I slogged through four-hour daily commutes on top of 13-hour workdays. Too young to drink legally, but suited up every day, I’d unwind with a pitcher of beer and chicken wings—wherever they were on special—because cooking? Not a clue.

I made some money but spent it as quickly as we made it, and we didn’t have much free time. Burnout hit hard. Nigel left, and I lived with a friend until, eventually, I delivered perhaps the best way to quit. and I was broke, jobless, and headed back to BC. Good friends hooked me up with a serving gig despite zero experience, and I started climbing back.

I was fired from that job despite being great at it, but it was run so poorly with 2 hour dinner wait times sometimes.  A Type A, ENTP, red personality, it was always hard to listen to others about how I should do things. By 2007, I was at the Boathouse, only to get canned—my third straight restaurant firing—because I always had a better way. 

In late 2007, I tried to sell used cars. I wore a white cardigan, lasted six days, then crashed an RX8 in the lot. Nope, not for me. 

An old colleague reached out, and I fell back into door-to-door sales. By 2008, I was back in Toronto—this time running my own company. Money flowed, and nights blurred with partying, Rock Band and forgotten nights in Vegas.  Remember, It turns out that spending everything and saving nothing during a recession isn’t smart. Broke again, rug yanked out, I limped back home.

I returned to clear my head, helping my parents with their food truck. I hadn’t noticed how bad things had gotten. They never let on, but home wasn’t okay anymore. Dad was in his late 70s, raising a daughter under 10. Missteps had cut their events—their lifeline. Coming back opened my eyes. I had to stay.

I slung corndogs with Mum while Dad taught me to drive a trailer that summer. A 79-year-old who’d always done it his way tried showing me by doing, leaving me to fill the gaps. We made it through, and that fall, I enrolled in university to get my act together. Bouncing between restaurants, I met incredible people—some still my closest friends.

2010 was magic. The Olympics lit up BC, and I showed my Canadian pride by cheering on local brewers and napping against buildings. That year, I dug deeper into Dad’s business, trying to crack its model. We were food truckers before food trucks were a thing—pioneers nobody recognized beyond the PNE or Calgary Stampede.

By 2011, Dad got sick. He stopped building, cooking, driving, yelling—just tried to enjoy what time he had left, hoping the business would survive. I had to step up. I’m not sure what flipped the switch—university, repeated failures, or just timing—but I was ready.

In 2013, we rebranded and launched Next Gen Concessions, completely taking over the food trucks. A 2011 car accident left me with a $16,000 settlement—enough to swap plywood for metal and get the Corndog King rolling. My wife, Mum, and sister were the backbone. We slept in parking lots, pulled 24-hour shifts, and trial-and-errored our way to a second truck, then a third, and well, I’m not the food truck dad for nothing. 

We travelled around the country finding our secret sauce working events of all kinds, including a strip club in Lethbridge at 1 am when Kat was 8 months pregnant. We grew through two kids, twelve food trucks, two kids and four businesses we operate today.

I’m lucky enough to have seen where our business and industry have been over the past 30 years and where they are today, and hopefully, I’m fortunate enough to see its full transition that is well underway. 

My path’s never been straight, and it never will be. It’s the only one that could’ve brought me here. Mentors and friends helped, but I’m a smart man, not a wise one—learning from my own screw-ups instead of others’. I wouldn’t trade the lessons or the grind: sleeping in the cabs of our trucks, breaking down in rural parts of Canada with no clue what to do. It built resilience and grew the chip on my shoulder.

People sometimes ask me how we got here, and it looks so easy. Though it feels like a lifetime ago how much we sacrificed. The grind is still very real and I don’t think many would’ve survived what we did to get here. 

I reflect back on the stories we have from when we started and how it created who we are today. I hope our experiences and stories help other understand it’s not a straight path to reach your goals. There’s bumps in the road but the resilience you created becomes a part of you and those small problems you face on the grind become your opportunities to succeed where others fail.

I’ll leave you with a quote I read today that sums it up: 

“We don’t climb mountains to get to the top; we climb mountains to see the person we create on the journey” – Jim Murphy.