Vandals force local food truck owner to close and make repairs

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — A local food truck owner is searching for answers about who vandalized his business Sunday night, forcing him to close his business temporarily.

Mean Grillers BBQ on South Glenstone had its power cords severed, causing the owner Gary Morris to shut down and make repairs.

However, Morris says he won’t let this incident put him down.

“It’s sad because, you know, he’s a good guy. And I know things happen in Springfield, but, you know, it’s kind of sad it happened to him because he’s got his business trying to keep it going,” said Arthur Duncan. “And, you know, I’m a former businessman myself. So I know it’s hard to keep going when you have these things come up.”

Gary Morris is originally from Florida and started his BBQ business in 2021 and right now he’s been a one-man working crew as he works to make his dreams come true.

“I didn’t see exactly what happened until I walked around the front of my food truck and I saw that they had severed my cords to my power supply,” said Morris. “And it’s a 50 amp cord. It’s not nothing light. You know something? Somebody has to have bolt cutters to hands to do this with. So they knew what they were coming for.”

Morris says he had some suspicious activity taking place around his business Sunday night. When he drove up to his food truck on Monday morning, that’s when he found that someone had cut the power cords to his truck.

“You can go do a show and then something like this happens and then all the money you just made from that show has to go to repairing something like this,” said Morris.

When Morris found out what they took, he already knew why they targeted the power cords.

“So I know that they took that for the copper. So I already know what’s going on with this situation. I already know what I’m looking for,” Morris said. “And it’s very unfortunate for business owners like us, because business owners like me, at the end of day, we’re just trying to make an honest living,” said Morris.

Morris says he already filed a police report and hopes the people who did this get caught.

“I can speak for every other small business when I say this. You know, if I had to say something to the people that did this, I would just tell them, please stop,” said Morris.

Morris says he will reopen his food truck tomorrow at 11 a.m.

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