WY Smoke Burritos opens

Business partners Bob Reardon and Darren Calhoun have opened up a new food truck called WY Smoke Burritos located at 8th Street and Shoshoni Street. They have breakfast and lunch/dinner burritos with smoked pork, BBQ mole prime beef, chicken, vegetable and tater tots with a protein choice. The burritos can also be chimichanga style smothered. 

Reardon described the creation of the foods and the prime brisket and pork are smoked 12-14 hours. The pork sits on top of beds of pineapple with drippings adding flavor. Reardon said, “For me the chicken tai is the king, for flavor, for texture, for moisture.”

Regarding Reardon’s inspiration behind it he said, “the business model is In-N-Out Burgers. Why is In-N-Out great? Because they do a couple of things extremely well. They don’t do a chicken sandwich, they don’t do a fish sandwich, they don’t do salads or sundaes. They do milkshakes, fries and burgers. That’s kinda the idea behind this. Let’s not have a typical food truck that has 15 to 20 items. It’s super hard for inventory and keeping things fresh and have quality control. Let’s do four or five things and do them really well.”

Hours of operation are currently 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. seven days a week, but as the tourist season expands, they plan to change their hours to 7 a.m. until 10 p.m.

They want to hire more staff as well, hardworking, local employees. Reardon plans to keep the location of the food truck the same, situated at 8th Street and Shoshoni Street. Reardon added they are also available for off-site catering.

Reardon’s passion for food and cooking comes from his growing up in an Italian family. He said, “My mother is 100% Sicilian. I have vivid memories as a child rolling gnocchi on a board with my grandmother. In an Italian family, the women cook and the men cook. In a lot of cultures, the kitchen is the heart of the family, in Italian even more so. The men will cook, the women will cook. Who’s kicking who out of the kitchen. I just grew up with that.”

Julia Child also was an inspiration growing up. When he packed a lunch to school, he didn’t have the typical peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Instead, he has freshly made pasta with seafood. 

When it comes to serving tourists and the people of Hot Springs County, Reardon said, “The support of the town of Thermopolis is huge. We’ve been open for four days and our numbers have been much higher than anticipated for this time of year. Most of them have been locals. We really want the support of the town and we want to be a part of it. Being business partners with Darren Calhoun who has extremely strong ties to the community. We want to be part of the community.”