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Audrain Hospitality will likely operate Easton’s Beach Snack Bar this summer

Vaseline

Audrain Hospitality, the parent company behind several local food trucks and eateries in Newport, is being considered as a supplier for concessions at Easton’s Beach this summer.

The Newport City Council will decide at its regular meeting on April 24 whether to approve a recommendation from the city council to award Audrain the contract to provide food services at Easton’s Beach this summer. In its recommendation for the contract award, the city council said Audrain’s proposal promises to provide an 8-metre catering kitchen, a fleet of five food trucks, a refrigerated catering van and a commissary kitchen within a 2.4 radius from May 15 to September 15 km from Easton’s Beach. 30 of this year daily from 9am to 7pm.

Whatever happened to Easton’s Beach Snack Bar?

Since 1999, the city has had an ongoing contract with Easton’s Snack Bar to provide concessions on the beach. The city declined to renew the snack bar’s contract in January, ahead of a planned decision this summer to demolish the building that housed the concession stand and carousel building. The city has been planning to demolish the structures since a spring 2021 condition report revealed significant structural deficiencies in the buildings that, while repairable, would be expensive to repair.

Audrain owns four of the six food truck licenses available in the city through her companies A Mano Pizza, La Costa Lobster and Tacos, Wally’s Wieners and Cluck Truck, each of which operates in various locations around the city during the summer and also provide food at local events. Audrain’s proposal to the city would give the city a lump sum of $72,000 and 10% of gross revenue from all products sold at Easton’s Beach over $750,000. Additionally, the company committed to working with other local food truck suppliers, including the newly acquired Newport Area Career food truck and Technical Center Culinary program students from Rogers High School.

Parmesan chicken, lo mein, stuffies: You’ve never seen a concession stand like Middletown High’s

What the other proposals offered

Only two other companies responded to the city’s request for proposals: Newport Chowder Company, which holds one of the other two food truck licenses in the city, and Food Fleet, a Knoxville, Tennessee-based food truck management company. On its website, Food Fleet lists 21 Rhode Island food trucks as members of its management portfolio, including Newport Chowder Company.

The city council memo detailing how the proposals were assessed indicated that Food Fleet’s proposal gave the city 5% of its net sales from Easton’s Beach, which would increase depending on how much the company earned. The city calculated that Audrain’s proposal would result in more money for the city. The four reviewers charged with rating each proposal against the city’s rubric also gave Food Fleet lower marks in almost every category.

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