Food Truck Found Vandalized, Stripped: Beltway Bistro Owner

SILVER SPRING, MD — The Silver Spring food truck that went missing on Memorial Day has been found, but it's not a happy ending.

Owner James Turner said police told him the truck had been spray painted to cover the Beltway Bistro label on the side, and all of the kitchen equipment inside had been removed. The truck wasn't even open for business yet — Turner had just finished licensing and was planning to open in a few weeks. He said he wasn't surprised when he got the news Thursday morning.

“I just knew there wouldn't be anything in there," he told Patch.

When the truck went missing, Turner had said he didn't expect to get it back. He thought that it would be taken apart and sold for parts.

"I just figured with the timeframe of everything and the attention the truck was getting that it wouldn't be coming back in one piece," he said. "I just knew.”

Turner is still working with his insurance company to see what can be done — the cost of the truck alone was $50,000, with a few more thousand spent on the equipment. He might return to working more hours at Blue 44 in Washington, D.C., where he's been a chef for the past 10 years.

Related: Food Truck Stolen: Beltway Bistro Missing Weeks Before Opening

It had been a dream of his to open his own place and he wanted to show people that food truck could serve restaurant-quality food.

"For once I just wanted to do something for myself," he told Patch on Wednesday, before the truck was found. "This is something that I started on my own and wanted to follow through with it, to do something for me, to make my own schedule and to have something to call my own."

He estimates it'll take him three or four months to get back to the position he was in before the truck was stolen, but he's determined to make it work.

“It's a gut punch but like I said before I need to work to get back at it and try to make a livelihood to start that business again,” Turner said on Friday.