“It was a dream we both had,” she recalls. “Let’s get our food truck and make our fortune, we said to ourselves.”

Rhonda and Tim Lockhart are the husband-and-wife team behind Stand and Stuff Your Face, a food truck that travels throughout Cape Breton, offering delicious homemade meals, as well as catering weddings and special events. Their 24-foot rig is the biggest food truck in all of Cape Breton.

“Originally, we were going to call it Rhonda’s Stand and Stuff but were told that sounds like a taxidermist,” Rhonda laughs.

Tim was an executive chef for 30 years in hotels and resorts. Rhonda has extensive experience in the culinary world as well.

At first, the food truck offered items like haddock wraps and home fries, but they listened to their customers, who craved more traditional Maritime fare like fish n’ chips and poutine. They invested in three deep fryers, which Rhonda says was the best decision they ever made. The current menu offers a variety of tasty snacks and meals, from fries and burgers to spinach salads and noodle bowls with an Asian flair.

During Hurricane Fiona, Tim and Rhonda catered meals for Nova Scotia Power linemen working hard to restore power after the storm hit. They fed 700 people every day for almost two weeks. Today, business is booming and Tim and Rhonda can’t keep up with demand.

“This year, we turned down 40-50 events,” Tim explains.

But building the business of their dreams was tough in the beginning. The couple pooled their savings to buy a $10,000 food truck from a company that designs them in Ontario. They paid but the company never delivered. Eventually, they found an empty trailer in Oshawa, purchased it and put in the work to retrofit it as a food truck. One week after officially starting the business, Tim’s mother tragically passed away. She was their biggest supporter through the process of getting the food truck business going.

As the business got busier, Tim and Rhonda turned to CBDC to help fund their second food truck. “CBDC was fantastic,” Tim says. “Even today, if we need support, we just ask.”

So what does the future hold for Stand and Stuff your Face?

“We’ll likely run this business for at least five more years. It’s lucrative,” Tim notes.

“Next, we might open a dog park or doggy daycare on our property,” Rhonda says. “We’ve got three dogs and two cats. We love pets. I want a goat so bad so I’m working on Tim for that!”