DENVER -- The parking lot outside the Denver Commissary is lined with food truck, after food truck, after food truck, many of which are parked, long-term, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Among those trucks, the J Street Food Truck, owned by Jason Bray and Amy Crowfoot.
The Englewood couple decided to park the truck two weeks ago, when the city of Denver ordered bars, restaurants and breweries to stop serving indoors.
"Normally the food trucks would go to breweries or office parks on a rotational basis," Bray said, "so what's happening is a drastic impact. Everything we normally go to is closed."
Bray said the prognosis for quick change doesn't look good.
"That's the scary part," he said. "Usually food truck season is late April through September, or early October. Now, we're already getting cancellations for a lot of stuff in the summer, like City Park Jazz and we're waiting to see what happens with Civic Center Eats."
The couple told Denver7 their business dropped 100% after the order came down to "stay at home."
Their initial thought, that they could sell online from their regular menu, proved to be fleeting.
"It didn't make sense for us to sit in this kitchen and cross our fingers and hope that we would get an order through GrubHub," Crowfoot said, "so we decided to package up meals for families and kind of do it that way."
Crowfoot redid the menu on J Street's website, posting a link to their "family meals for pickup and delivery," page and to their "donate meals to medical staff"page.
Anyone wanting to donate meals to hospital staff can purchase them on the J Street website and Bray will deliver them to the hospital.
They plan to make a delivery Saturday evening to the EMS staff at Denver Health.
Bray, the chef, said the family meals, like shepherd pie, chicken and dumpling pasta, and BBQ brisket mac and cheese, feed 4 to 6 people.
"Even if your family is not that large, you can buy it and have leftovers for 3 to 4 days," he said.
Crowfoot said the family meal, which includes salad and some cookies can be delivered to your door for $40.
When asked what kind of feedback they get from parents, Crowfoot said some have told them that even their young "picky" eaters come back for seconds.
Bray is optimistic about their plan.
He said good food can bring people together.
"I love food," he said. "It can make you feel good. It can make you kind of forget about the bad things for just a small second. So you get a good meal around your family, have good laughs. It can do wonders."
It might even do wonders for a business struggling during this pandemic.
