The Dago, which is not allowed to park on campus other than for some sporting events, hopes to one day alleviate crowding during meal times by parking in front of Reamer and offering students different food options.
Rachel Steiner | Concordiensis
Although they pride themselves on “wandering as the day goes,” Brandon Snooks and Andrea Loguidice, owners of the Wandering Dago food truck, hope that Schenectady can be the city that puts the brakes on their nomadically delicious lifestyle. The blue, retrofitted UPS truck, with the iconic cycling pig logo, is a common sight across the street from the up-campus Greek houses. After reading the Jan. 31 Concordy article addressing the overcrowding at Union, Snooks and Loguidice saw an opportunity for their food truck business to alleviate some of the congestion during peak dining hours on campus.
Director of Dining Services David Gaul explained the hurdles involved with bringing an outside dining entity on to campus during the peak dining hours. “The problem is that there is a legal issue with using declining balance at off-campus food services,” Gaul explained. “It is constructed solely for the purpose of use at on-campus dining locations.” New York tax laws state, “the sales must be made at a restaurant, tavern or other establishment located on the premises of the post-secondary school, and the school itself must be operated by an exempt organization.” These are the same tax laws that limit the use of declining balance in the bookstore to only food and beverages.
The Wandering Dago owners adamantly believe that they could contribute to Union’s dining scene. “We work a lot right now with Greek organizations on campus, with philanthropy events, and we’ve gotten great feedback with the price and quality of our food. The rest of the campus, we believe, would benefit from this food option without having to travel up campus to try our food,” Snooks explained, which is one reason why they believe their service would be ideal to serve a significantly larger clientele at Union.
However, last spring, Gaul and his team began discussing the resurgence of the college’s own mobile food cart. The food cart named FRED, which stands for Fast Ready Easy Dutch, was discontinued before any current students were enrolled at Union. FRED accepted declining balance and offered a variety of food options from sandwiches to soups and even burritos. Gaul explained that they “are still in the process of sourcing a vehicle,” but “we’ve been talking about bringing the cart back in the fall.”
The Wandering Dago has since been allowed on-campus following athletic events. Gaul explained, “I met with the director of athletics and we agreed that it would be okay for the Wandering Dago to park on campus after athletic events such as soccer, lacrosse and hockey games. He went on, “It isn’t supposed to be that they are impacting our service, but that they provide an alternative spot for [students] to get food which is not identical to the offerings on campus.”
Snooks and Loguidice have recently begun talking with other colleges, such as Skidmore, to see if they would allow their food services to be more integrated into the school’s dining scene. “We’ve met a lot of cool people here at Union,” Snooks said, “but we want to give Union a try before moving on to other opportunities.”
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I highly doubt the school will fund a food truck with a racial slur in its name.
Nothing like caring for the students health and happiness by offering pre-made soups and sandwiches with a burrito.
Our goal was healthy, fast and nothing pre-made for the Union Students. We source most ingredients locally while preparing almost every single item from scratch.
We were hoping to donate some proceeds to the general scholarship fund and of course Union would take a percentage of the sales. Good Business, everyone wins, including most importantly the students.
Many campuses have food trucks nowadays – The University of Vermont has 5 on campus every single day.
We should let the students vote, they pay the salaries and taxes for this great institution.
Fresh, local, truckmade food OR Pre-made soups and sandwiches with burritos.
Out of honest curiosity – what is the point of having a racial slur in the name of your business? and having a sandwich named after a racial slur for people of Polish decent?
Sarah – That is a great question. We are both Italian and the term does not mean what people think. Years ago, the Italians worked much like our modern term for day laborers. They were paid weekly by the bosses. Many wanted to be paid daily instead of weekly – As the Day Goes, hence the term Dago. We have some fun with our heritage and we do wander and get paid as the day goes. One of our best friends is polish and that is his sandwich and his nickname. We call him simply, Polack. We also have the Mic N Cheese – Irish Heritage and tons of great Irish Friends. The Rabi – One of Andrea’s Sisters from her college sorority is Jewish and that is her favorite meat. Our names are never meant to hurt anyone’s feelings. We have a ton of fun on this truck and we joke that not everybody likes us, but we drive some folks wild. And to Anon – If we offended you in any way, we are sorry, that was not our intention.
Sarah – I hope that shed some light on a couple things, one being what the term Dago really means. Our grandfather was a dago and that was a common term. We are just another generation of Dagos.