A Rochester restaurant is readying to roll this summer.
The Maid-Rite Dineris going mobile with a new lunch truck. Don Sanford— Mr. Maid-Rite — plans to take his diner's loose meat hamburgers and hot dogs directly to the Med City's lunch crowd.
"Work is starting next week on my new truck. It'll be called the Maid-Rite Lunch Box," he says.
The plan is to cruise the truck to construction sites, offices or wherever to take orders, cook them up and serve hamburgers, hot dogs and chips.
"With gas at $4 a gallon, I think it will be a good deal for people who don't want to drive for lunch," he says.
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Sanford already has a license from the state of Minnesota, which will allow him to sell food from the truck on private property, like a company giving him permission to cook and sell in their parking lot.
"If I pull off the street, I'm fine," Sanford says.
City streets, however, are another story. On Monday, the Rochester City Councilwill discuss whether to issue a permit to allow the Maid-Rite Lunch Box to pull over anywhere and set up shop.
Sanford hopes the council will OK that, but he'll take the diner to the streets no matter what this summer, probably starting in June.
While a pair of staffers will run the lunch truck, he'll also have a Maid-Rite concession trailer working county fairs and festivals in the area.
And, of course, the original diner that he opened last year with his wife, Noreen Sanford, and their daughter, Reann Blumers, will keep cooking in Rochester's Crossroads Plaza.
"We've got some exciting stuff going on," he says.
Safety leader
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A national manufacturer with a large Chatfield facility made it through 2010 without a single workplace accident. Tallying its annual numbers, Strongwell Corp.found that no time was lost due to an accident.
Strongwell makes fiberglass products like grating, hand rails, bridge reinforcements and ladders at its Chatfield plant using a pultrusion process.
"Chatfield has seen significant growth lately, even last year," says company spokeswoman Amber Clark.
Of the company's 506 employees, 155 work in Chatfield.
