Good news for fans of food trucks, homemade fries, and waffles here in Moose Jaw: there’s a new food truck in town that is ready to live up to its name with a menu full of good things.
Full Bellies Breakfast, Burgers, and Fries food truck hit the streets at the beginning of May, joining a relatively empty scene of mobile food services.
Owner Stephanie Shirley thought that adding another food truck to the mix would be a great addition to Moose Jaw, which is why she and fiancé Clara Reid decided to open up Full Bellies.
“It’s something flexible and something Moose Jaw could use, so we just thought, ‘why not?’” said Shirley.
The menu features a range of options, including breakfast items, burgers, poutine, and occasionally sweet dessert specials.
Their specialty, said Shirley, is waffles — and Full Bellies offers waffles for every meal. The chicken and waffle sandwich has turned out to be a huge hit with customers so far, and the truck also does breakfast waffles, snack-size waffles on a stick, and even dessert waffles with sweet toppings.
Full Bellies also does its best to cater to certain dietary restrictions, offering a black bean patty as a vegetarian option for any of their burgers as well as a burger substitute that fits the requirements of a keto diet.
They just started making tornado fries, spiral cut and deep-fried to a perfect crisp, and Shirley recommends that customers who like a little spice should give the popular Spicy Belly Burger a try.
“It’s very hot, like ‘melt your face off’ hot,” she laughed. “But really, everything is just good and it’s all homemade.”
And she means everything — from the burger patties to the batter coating the onion rings. Shirley and Reid spend hours working on food prep, mixing waffle batter and pounding hamburger into the patties they serve on all their Belly burgers.
Reid is always thinking up new and tasty items to try out, and the latest creation is the Full Bellies chip butty — a toasted sandwich filled with fries, cheese and gravy.
“It’s super good, lots of carbs,” said Shirley. “But that’s the thing about this, we just get to experiment with basically whatever we want, and it really brings us joy.”
Shirley feels like Full Bellies has seen a good response from Moose Jaw so far, and finds that the mobility of a food truck is turning out to be helpful in keeping business going.
“It’s nice because if it’s not busy, we can just move,” said Shirley. “We’ve been up by [Mac] the Moose, for a little bit, and then downtown which is really nice because people walk by and it’s a lot more sociable.”
The pandemic put a bit of a damper on the opening summer season for Full Bellies, as a lot of the festivals and events the food truck was planning on attending have been cancelled, but the new business is making the best of things.
Full Bellies is following the recommended COVID-19 safety practices, including asking customers to respect social distancing while waiting on their food, and is looking into new ways to get their food into people’s hands.
Shirley and Reid recently finished catering a staff breakfast for a local company, and are hoping that more local businesses might be interested in arranging for Full Bellies to park outside their building for staff lunches and such.
Full Bellies will also be taking part in the upcoming Canada Day events organized by a handful of local groups, including The Moose Jaw Express/Moose Jaw Today. The food truck will be joining the celebrations downtown on Manitoba Street West for those looking to stop by and give them a try.
Otherwise, keeping up with Full Bellies is best done on their Facebook page, to find out where they are located each day and what tasty items are on special.
