MASON CITY, Iowa - Throughout the last year, many restaurant and bar owners have been forced to adapt to some drastic changes, including switching to a drive-thru or carryout only option, or utilizing third party food delivery services like Grubhub and Doordash for the first time. Some have also expanded into the growing food truck market.

For Stampedes Sports Bar & Grill owner Chad Leer, while he was able to keep the lights on for most of 2020, things came to a head in November. With the pandemic impacting his bottom line, he was forced to close his brick and mortar location. He would take up working late night shifts at FedEx and took over the family trucking business after his Dad retired. But he knew that the restaurant business kept calling him back.

"We wanted to keep our food, which I got sick of eating out at different places. I thought, 'I missed my food!'"

Some of his employees, including his son, felt the same way, so he decided to get a trailer retrofitted to serve as a food truck, dubbed 'Stampedes on Wheels'. So far, business has been great. Compared to running a permanent location, Leer says overhead costs are much lower.

"You got your original startup costs, which everybody has. Monthly overhead is about a tenth, and we're seasonal. We'll probably plan on November shutting down, and start up again in April."

He hopes to get out to many area events this summer, something that he couldn't do with a fixed location.

"We get to see more people, and we've seen a lot of our old customers and they're so happy to see us get our food going again. We have a limited menu."

Currently, the menu consists of burgers, wings, barbecued pork, fries and big pretzels. For those that have been craving Stampedes' pizza, Leer says they're looking to renovate the truck after the season to fit pizza ovens.