This distinctive food truck is hard to miss in Centre County. Here’s what it’s serving up

Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of stories this summer highlighting food trucks across Centre County. What should we try next? Email jmichael@centredaily.com to give suggestions.

Brandtly Ward’s red and white striped food truck has had many lives — with a fire company, an airport and more — but it’s now where the Port Matilda man is serving up an ever-changing menu that aims to please all taste buds.

Ward’s Gourmet Griddle food truck opened its doors in spring 2023, and since then he’s been taking it to events, breweries and cideries across Centre County, serving up a number of sandwiches, sides and other dishes. He’s looking forward to extending his reach later this summer when he trades in the distinctive vehicle for a new trailer.

Ward got his start in food service at a young age, having studied the culinary arts at the Central Pennsylvania Institute of Technology. After graduation, he ran a restaurant in Ellicottville, New York, before returning to Happy Valley, meeting his wife Mallory Ward and starting the full-time job he still holds in maintenance for apartment complexes in State College.

He got the idea for the Gourmet Griddle food truck around five years ago, when he was visiting his brother in Bend, Oregon — a massive hub for food trucks on the West Coast.

“They have very few restaurants — almost everything is all about food trucks out there, and it was really neat,” Ward said. “We came back from vacation, and my mom and I were joking about starting my own food truck, and you know, everybody talks cheap, but they never do it. Well, there was a woman down in Milroy who was selling this truck, so we checked it out and ended up buying it.”

He said his friends and family spent “most of the winter of 2022” helping him outfit the red and white striped vehicle into a food truck, which debuted shortly after. Gourmet Griddle’s food truck originally served as a delivery truck for Hershey, a truck for a fire company and a luggage delivery truck at the Baltimore/Washington International Airport before it “somehow” made its way to central Pennsylvania.

Today, the truck can be found at various festivals, events and eateries across the county, such as Boal City Brewing and 814 Cider Works.

The Centre Daily Times caught up with Ward at his home in Port Matilda on Monday, where he made one of the most popular items on his menu, shared how he gets ideas for his ever-changing menu and future plans regarding his current food truck.

“We’re limited to Centre County at the moment, but we’ve got some pretty good reputations with a lot of local businesses,” Ward said. “I change the menu around every month too, so odds are we’ll have something you’ll like eventually.”

The BCB Burger and a revolving menu

While Gourmet Griddle has a revolving menu, there’s one item that has remained a favorite over the years — the BCB Burger. Ward added that since opening his food truck, the BCB Burger is the only item that has yet to be removed from his menu.

Included on the popular burger is a quarter-pound, hand-formed patty of fresh, local beef, cheddar cheese, a “smoky, sweet, creamy” sauce, lettuce, tomato, onion and sweet, homemade bacon jam, atop a toasted white bun, with fries on the side — all sourced locally, or as locally as possible.

“We’ve had that burger on our menu from the very beginning, and to this day we still can’t seem to get away from it,” Ward said. “It’s been on there for so long, and to tell you the truth, it’ll probably be on there for as long as I continue this business.”

Aside from the BCB Burger though, visitors to the Gourmet Griddle can expect to see a number of other items on his menu, including other burgers, sandwiches like a chicken club with crispy bacon, wings, fries, fried Brussels sprouts and more, depending on the month.

Ward also includes a vegetarian or gluten-free item or two on his menu as well, to accommodate for all customers. He gets the inspiration for his various dishes from “just about everywhere,” including other food items he sees at restaurants, on television, through link-ups with local businesses and more.

“So we did WingFest recently up at Tussey Mountain, and the wing sauce that we used was inspired by and made with cider from 814 Cider Works,” Ward said, noting that his eatery finished second. “We get closer and closer to winning each year. Last year, I think we lost by 12 votes, and this year they said was even tighter.”

New trailer coming soon

Thanks to the success of the Gourmet Griddle, partnered with the cash flow he gets from his full-time job, Ward was able to invest in a new food trailer that will serve as the permanent Gourmet Griddle food truck.

Ward said it will give him a “significantly larger” space to operate in, with a more than seven-foot-high ceiling, eight additional feet of room in length and two feet in width, which will, in turn, help him create an even larger menu for his customers. The new trailer also comes with air conditioning, which the current truck is lacking.

“It’s going to have a stainless steel griddle on it and a double fryer, that way we can go back to making some of the fried foods that we used to do, like this awesome fried chicken sandwich and fried catfish,” Ward said. “With the large amount of people with gluten allergies that have been popping up, we’ve been trying to use only the one fryer to accommodate them.”

Ward plans on receiving his new, tailor-made trailer in mid-July and moving into it in the same week, for what he hopes will be a near-seamless transition. After moving into the new trailer, he plans on selling the current truck, with the many stories that it’s accumulated over the years, and its unmatched character.

“It’s bittersweet, and I’m hoping that somebody from out of the area will buy it because we’ve had so many good times in this truck, and for some reason I don’t want to see somebody else driving around and serving stuff out of it,” Ward said.

He continued, “I love it. We built it, and we’ve gone through trials and tribulations with it. Our first week that we were open, I blew a belt off, and had to shut it down. ... I did a wedding in Brookville, and on the way there my exhaust fell off. It seemed like every time we would wash the outside of the truck, something mechanical would go wrong, so we just stopped washing it.

“We’re that restaurant that looks terrible on the outside but has some of the best food.”

The new trailer will be all black, although Ward plans on having a mural painted on the side of it by a local artist after its opening, just to give it a pop of color.

Moving forward, Ward would eventually like to pivot to doing the Gourmet Griddle full-time, but when that will be has yet to be seen. For now, Ward is just happy to be serving residents across Centre County the best food that he can.

Visiting Gourmet Griddle

Cuisine: American — burgers, sandwiches, wings, fries, etc.

Where to find them: Boal City Brewing, 814 Cider Works, New Trail Brewery in Williamsport (in the near future), events/festivals across Centre County

How to track them: Facebook (and keep an eye out for a website soon too)