Pocatello’s oldest family-run restaurant opens brand new food truck

Jumbo’s Xpress Cafe located on South 5th Avenue. | Logan Ramsey, EastIdahoNews.com POCATELLO – A restaurant that has been owned by the same family for nearly six decades has taken on a new business endeavour. Jeri’s Jumbo’s Cafe, which has been owned by the same family continuously since it first opened, has now started a food truck at 4539 South 5th Avenue. Called Jumbo’s Xpress Cafe, the food truck offers a condensed menu with both beloved and brand new dishes for customers to try. The restaurant started when George and Jeri Pieper acquired Jumbo’s Café in 1966, and turned it into Jeri’s Jumbo’s Café. “…it didn’t take long before Jeri had made some lifelong customers and friends. To this day, there are still people who come in and tell stories of the fun they had in Jumbo’s,” the restaurant’s website reads. One of George and Jeri’s children, Lisa, and her husband, Willis, later acquired the restaurant. Most recently, Heidi Hunsaker, the daughter of Lisa and Willis, managed the business for around nine years before buying it herself in 2024. Hunsaker had wanted to acquire a food truck for Jumbo’s for some time before taking on the challenge. “I’d been wanting to do it for a while. I tried to talk my mom into it a couple of times … and she (said), ‘No, that’s just … let’s not,’ And then I let it go,” Hunsaker said. But then Jumbo’s took on the challenge of serving food at the Ross Park Aquatic Complex concession stand during its 2024 season, giving the restaurant “a whole different perspective of food (service).” “I’d run Jumbo’s for so long for my mom, and working with my grandparents, and for my parents, that when we took that on, I just thought it was going to be easy, and it wasn’t. (It was) a whole different kitchen, whole different menu,” Hunsaker said. After Jumbo’s tackled this challenge, Hunsaker again started thinking more about a food truck. Something else that made Hunsaker interested in expanding was having the ability to experiment with new menu items, which she can’t do at the main restaurant. “I can show you menus from my grandma’s, clear back to the 80s, 90s, that menu hasn’t changed,” Hunsaker said. “And so I wanted to try new things, but you can’t try them in a restaurant that everybody’s just used to getting what they get.” A picture of the food truck’s menu. | Logan Ramsey, EastIdahoNews.com Jumbo’s Xpress Cafe is now in its second week of operation, located right next to the building where the Rim Rock Grill used to be located. Hunsaker chose to operate in the South Fifth Corridor of Pocatello because she sees it as a developing area that’s commercially underserved. “There needs to be food out here. There’s nowhere for anybody to eat out in this area, and all it’s doing is growing,” Hunsaker said. RELATED | Here’s Pocatello’s plan to bring sidewalks, sewer lines and more to southernmost neighborhoods Despite cold weather, Hunsaker plans to keep the food truck open throughout the winter. While she’s received numerous requests to stay open on the weekends, she doesn’t plan on doing so until at least January. “(With) holidays and all the things going on, we’re using the weekends to rest,” Hunsaker said. And it’s not a question of whether or not Jumbo’s Xpress Cafe will cater events, but if it will be available. “… reach out to us in December or January, just to let us get … our feet underneath us. We plan on doing evening farmers markets, maybe food truck roundups, stuff like that during the spring and summertime. Maybe fairs, we don’t know. The sky’s the limit,” Hunsaker said.The post Pocatello’s oldest family-run restaurant opens brand new food truck appeared first on East Idaho News.
Source: eastidahonews.com