New food‑truck rodeo site
- Bluefield demolished a former convenience station this week to clear space for a new Food Truck Rodeo. (bdtonline.com) - The demolition happened Thursday as part of a local effort to build permanent infrastructure for seasonal truck gatherings. (bdtonline.com) - Turning underused parcels into curated truck sites signals growing municipal support for mobile‑food economies. (bdtonline.com)
Bluefield cleared a former Gulf Express station on Thursday to make room for a permanent Food Truck Rodeo site on Bluefield Avenue. (bdtonline.com) City officials had identified the lot in November 2025 as the future home of the rodeo, describing it as a spring-and-summer 2026 project near city hall. City Manager Cecil Marson said then that preliminary funding was in place, including a $100,000 donation from the Shott Foundation. (yahoo.com) The site sits at the former Gulf Express property on Bluefield Avenue, close to the Bluefield Fire Department. Marson said last year the city wanted to turn the unused parcel into a “clean, safe and welcoming” place for multiple food trucks and public gatherings. (yahoo.com) A food-truck rodeo is a scheduled gathering where several mobile kitchens serve from one site instead of scattering across separate lots. Bluefield has been building toward that model for several years through a city-backed food truck incubator program that Marson said already included two food trucks and two food trailers for local entrepreneurs. (yahoo.com) The project also fits a wider Bluefield strategy of clearing obsolete properties and reusing them for new activity. In June 2025, city officials said Bluefield had completed 154 demolitions with $2.1 million from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s REAP program. (yahoo.com) On the city’s public project list, Bluefield describes the Food Truck Rodeo lot as a plan to repurpose an unused site into a visitor-friendly dining area. The same project page says demolition and lot revitalization are expected to cost about $200,000. (storymaps.arcgis.com) Bluefield already uses food trucks as part of its event calendar. City and parks listings for 2025 promoted food trucks at the Lemonade Festival, and the city’s 2026 Independence Day event page includes a vendor form for food trucks. (bluefieldwv.gov 1) (bluefieldwv.gov 2) Thursday’s demolition turns that event-by-event approach into a fixed address. If construction stays on the spring-and-summer 2026 schedule the city laid out in November, Bluefield’s next food-truck season will have a dedicated lot instead of a borrowed one. (yahoo.com)
