Who will run Easton's Beach Snack Bar this summer? Could be an increasingly familiar face
Audrain Hospitality, the parent company behind several local food trucks and eateries across Newport, is under consideration as the provider for concessions on Easton’s Beach this summer.
Newport City Council will decide at its regular meeting on April 24, whether it wants to approve a recommendation from City Administration to award Audrain the contract to provide food services at Easton’s Beach this summer. In its recommendation for the contract reward, city administration states Audrain’s proposal promises to provide a 26.5-foot catering kitchen, a fleet of five food trucks, a chilled catering van and a commissary kitchen within 1.5 miles of Easton’s Beach from May 15 to Sept. 30 of this year from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.
What happened to the Easton's Beach Snack Bar?
Since 1999, the city has had an ongoing contract with Easton’s Snack Bar to provide concessions at the beach. The city declined to renew its contract with the snack bar in January ahead of the planned decision to demolish the building that housed the concession stand along with the carousel building this summer. The city has been planning to demolish the structures since a Spring 2021 conditions report revealed significant structural deficiencies in the buildings that, while repairable, would be costly to fix.
Audrain owns four of the six food truck licenses available in the city through its companies A Mano Pizza, La Costa Lobster and Tacos, Wally’s Wieners and Cluck Truck, each of which operate in different locations across the city during the summer and also provide food at local events. Audrain’s proposal to the city would give the city a flat $72,000 fee and 10% of the gross revenue from all products sold at Easton’s Beach in excess of $750,000. Additionally, the company promised to work with other local food truck vendors, including the newly acquired food truck run by the Newport Area Career and Technical Center Culinary program students out of Rogers High School.
Chicken parm, 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 memo from city administration detailing how the proposals were judged indicated that Food Fleet’s proposal offered the city 5% of its net sales from Easton’s Beach, which would increase depending on how much the company made. The city calculated that Audrain’s proposal would result in more money for the city. The four reviewers tasked with grading each proposal against the city’s rubric also gave Food Fleet lower marks on nearly every category.
This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Audrain Hospitality likely to run Easton's Beach Snack Bar this summer
