Food truck park opens on NC-16 Business in Chronicle

By James Kmosko

5th Quarter Food Truck Park, a new casual dining location, opened in Chronicle in mid-November.

The park was planned and financed by Damon Lusk, owner and president of the Denver-based company Race City Steel. The location will provide several food options to an area which, according to Lusk, is underserved.

“I’ve lived in Denver now for 25 years or so,” Lusk said. “On the north end of Denver there’s really nowhere to grab something that’s somewhat quick and that’s not fast food.”

The food truck park is located on NC-16 Business immediately north of the Lincoln/Catawba County line, in front of the Martin-Marietta Quarry. It consists of seven spots for food trucks, parking for customers, and a dining pavilion.

When at full capacity, between four and six of the spots will be occupied by food trucks at all times, Lusk says.

“You just get tired of the same old thing,” Lusk said. “[Now] you can have Lobster Dogs, you can have Thai food, or you can get a good coffee, or whatever it might be.”

The park is slated to host several events in 2026.

“We’re gonna do a lot of events there [next year],” Lusk said. “We’re gonna have some boutiques out there, we’re gonna have some farmer’s market stuff, we’re gonna have some pumpkins, Christmas trees. It’s gonna be a quick in-and-out event center.”

Lusk says he hopes the food park can become a center for the local community.

“It’s really just a community thing. I live here, and I’m big on trying to give back to the community,” Lusk said. “This community’s been good to us, and we’re just trying to give back what we can. We don’t want it to be a junk spot. We want people to come there [to a] nice, clean, organized, modern place to grab something quick.”

According to Lusk, the reception from customers has been overwhelmingly positive.

“So far it’s been great,” Lusk said. “We’ve had a lot of good people, a couple hundred people reach out. We’re looking forward to getting people booked.”

Despite the positive reception, Lusk says he expects it to take “a few months” for many local vendors to learn about the new location.

“The customers are coming,” Lusk said.” What we currently need is food trucks to come and hook up. We need to get the word out there to the food trucks that we’re here and we’re open for business.”

If the food truck park is successful, Lusk may expand the 5th Quarter paradigm to more locations.

“This will be our pilot location,” Lusk said. “If we think this is gonna work, then we’ll do five or ten more of these across the area. We do have some other land to do larger sites, so this will be a test pilot to see what works, and we’ll go from there.”

The idea of building a dedicated park for food trucks is not unique to 5th Quarter. Similar parks exist across the United States. The Village Food Truck Park, a food truck park in Asheville, says the concept originated from European village markets.

“Farmers have been bringing their meat, dairy and produce to village markets for thousands of years, always by food carts,” their website says. “But what has changed is the way trucks have changed, from carts to fully customized, beautiful retail outlets on wheels.”

Such other parks are what inspired the creation of 5th Quarter, according to Lusk.

“We’ve had property there for a while and we’ve seen the concept in some other states. We thought it was really cool,” Lusk said. “We’re just figuring out what people want, what people like, and getting to scheduling some good trucks.”

For more information or to book a spot for a food truck, visit the 5th Quarter’s website at www.5thquarterfoodpark.com.