Food truck gives baked potatoes a gourmet makeover

Cheryl Hentz

Contributor

July 14, 2025

NORTHEAST WISCONSIN – Once a quirky niche of urban street culture in major U.S. cities, the food truck industry has zoomed into the mainstream nationwide, becoming one of the fastest-growing segments of the food service market – serving everything from Korean BBQ tacos to vegan doughnuts.

Per the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the estimated annual revenue of the U.S. food truck industry is $2.7 billion, and growing. 

Fueling that growth, according to the foundation, are low start-up costs, ease of advertising through social media and the public’s desire for unique food items.  

One local businessman said he got into the food truck industry in 2019 and hasn’t looked back since.

Reggie Desamour said he moved to Northeast Wisconsin from his native country, Haiti, to attend school, then furthered his education by attending radiology school with the intent of becoming a radiologic technician. 

“Part of the way through radiology school, he decided it just wasn’t going to be a good fit for him,” Roxanne Adams – manager of the Busted Spud food truck – said. “He has always cooked.”

Learning from his mom, Adams said Desamour grew up cooking for his family. 

“When he realized he wasn’t going to finish radiology school, he was trying to come up with something unique he could do,” she said. “It was at a time when food trucks were just starting to become a thing in our area. So, he did a whole bunch of research and decided that he was going to make it happen for himself.”

Gradual growth

Adams said she met Desamour in 2013, and they’ve worked on different joint ventures together ever since.

Today, Adams said she is not only his sounding board and business partner, but she also manages his entire food service business that has continued to flourish since their first food truck. 

“In 2019, he, along with a friend, built our first food truck – Caribbean Taste,” she said. “Our first food trailer was a 6-foot-by-12-foot little silver trailer. Our first day out was May 19, 2019.”

Not even a year later, Adams said the COVID-19 pandemic hit, which gave their nearly year-old food truck a huge boost.

“Surprisingly, we flourished during COVID, and we realized almost immediately that we needed something bigger,” she said. “The little [trailer we had] could not accommodate all of the food that Reggie wanted to serve or the events he wanted to go to.”

Adams said that led to the business purchasing its first full-size, 26-foot food truck.

“We moved from the trailer to the food truck in September 2020,” she said. “I think all food trucks thrived during that time, but for us, it actually gave us the capital to move from the trailer to the truck.” 

Adams said Desamour started Caribbean Taste so he could share Haitian food with the Appleton community. 

Three years later, she said they expanded the business by buying a brick-and-mortar restaurant at 1025 N. Badger Ave. in Appleton. 

Adams said it had been the location of a pizza place that went out of business because of COVID, so they purchased it and changed the name to Area 509.

She said the restaurant serves a menu very similar to Caribbean Taste, but offers a few more items than the truck.  

“As of right now, Area 509 is the only Haitian restaurant in the State of Wisconsin,” she said.  

When they first launched Caribbean Taste in the trailer, Adams said they had no aspirations of ever owning a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

“But, being a food truck in the State of Wisconsin, you have to be attached to a base,” she said. “It’s a health department requirement to have an active health department license. We were renting a space in a commissary kitchen, and that’s where we would do our dishes, prepare our food and then, basically, just put everything on the truck and move.”

But, Adams said they eventually got to a point where they were producing so much food and spending so much money on rent, it made sense to find their own space.

“The right opportunity came along, and we bought it,” she said. “It’s a small restaurant, but it’s the right size for us. Initially, we were going to purchase it and turn it into a commissary kitchen just to support the food truck operation, but we decided to make it into a restaurant.”

After being in the restaurant for a couple of years, Adams said they decided to expand again.

“I’ve had the idea for a loaded potato food truck for probably three years now,” she said, “and we finally made it happen. Busted Spud is our second food truck, and it has been in existence since April.”

Turning potatoes into gourmet meals

Initially, Adams said the plan was to offer just loaded potatoes.

“But since this was something I’d wanted to do for a while, I didn’t want to limit it to just potatoes,” she said. “So, I said, ‘Why can’t we do loaded fries and loaded tater tots, as well?’ So, that’s what we currently do.”

Adams said the plan is to eventually add more items to the menu.

“But we want to make sure our operations are polished and streamlined before we expand the menu,” she said. “So, right now we have four different potato and meat options. What I want to do with this is add a vegetarian option and then start doing a weekly special. I have a lot of ideas for specials, but we just haven’t gotten to that point yet.” 

At Busted Spud, Adams said, customers will first choose their base – a baked potato, crinkle-cut fries or tater tots. 

Then, she said, they’ll add the meat they want, of which they have four options, and other various toppings.

“For meat options, we have a chicken-bacon-ranch option, we have a taco one, we have one that has brisket, more of like a barbecue-style potato, and then we have one that has pork in it,” she said. “We have a wide variety of different toppings, as well. Our menu explains everything that’s on a potato to make it ‘loaded.’” 

Adams said Busted Spud’s potatoes are “not your average-size potatoes, either.”

She said she buys them in 50-pound cases with 40 potatoes in each case.

“Before you put on anything else, each potato is likely to weigh about a pound,” she said. “It sounds silly, like you’d [typically] order a potato as a side. But it’s not that at all. There is an option to order a tiny ‘tato,’ as well, which would be a half size.”

Adams said tater tots have quickly become a huge hit at Busted Spud and are the best-selling item on the truck.

“I don’t know what makes people go nuts for tater tots, but they sure do,” she said. “I would say that 70% of the time, people choose tots as their base. We still sell a whole lot of potatoes, but people love tots. I’m hoping to have that kind of response when I start doing the weekly specials.”

Adams said the Loaded Brisket Tots is Busted Spud’s bestseller.

The menu describes these as having garlic butter, salt and pepper, shredded cheese, seasoned brisket, BBQ sauce, ranch and crispy fried onions.

“When we first started talking about doing Busted Spud, there were so many comments from people about how they used to love 1-Potato-2 when it was at the mall,” she said. “So, I’m excited to do some specials and hopefully touch on something 1-Potato-2 did that people loved and missed.”

Rolling flavors

Adams said Busted Spud’s location varies every week, with locations posted every Monday on the food truck’s Facebook page.

One place the truck stops almost every Saturday, she said, is the Oshkosh Farmers Market, close to The Roxy restaurant at 571 N. Main St. 

“Caribbean Taste is at the Oshkosh Farmers Market every Saturday, too,” she said. “We’ve been there for about five years now.”

Adams said she and Desamour are both grateful for the initial response to Busted Spud, just as they are grateful for the positive response to Caribbean Taste and Area 509.

Since Busted Spud was Adams’ brainchild, she said she’s especially excited about how it’s taken off so quickly. 

“It’s already off to a great start, and I just hope it continues to grow from here,” she said. “I would love to see Busted Spud grow to where we’d potentially have more than just one truck.”

Adams said she has big aspirations for Busted Spud’s future.

“If they could be staffed, and the food would be consistent and at the level we would want it to be, I would love to have four total throughout the state,” she said. “They would be based in Appleton, but would go anywhere in Wisconsin.”

Building community through food

Adams said many of the food truck owners in Northeast Wisconsin work together to bring unique things to the community – not just with food but with events, too.

Both Caribbean Taste and Busted Spud, she said, belong to Facebook chat groups where they bounce ideas off each other.

Also, every Friday night from 5-8 p.m. in the outdoor space behind Area 509, Adams said they host Food Truck Fridays where they invite other food trucks and the community can partake in lots of different food and live music (from 5:30-7:30 p.m.).

“We’re doing a Second Saturday Music Series where on the second Saturday of each month, we have a larger band from 6-10 p.m.,” she said.

On Sundays, Adams said they host a Triple S Market, which stands for Sip, Shop and Sing. 

“We have up to 10 craft vendors every Sunday from 1-5 p.m.,” she said. “The bar is open, and there’s an open mic opportunity if anyone wants to sing. We offer a couple of different food specials on the food truck and there are also charcuterie boards available. It’s a nice way to come out, relax, have something to eat and drink, enjoy the summer sun and support the vendors.”