61 AirportImprovement.com November | December 2026 CONCESSIONS GRR Other airports, including Fresno Yosemite International Airport, have used food trucks just outside the terminal to supplement the variety and operating hours of in-house concessions. By elevating its viewing-park game to include food and drinks, GRR has developed a relatively low-cost blueprint other airports could follow to build community engagement. Room for a View Located on the south side of the airport, the 12-acre viewing park allows visitors to watch planes on GRR’s main runway from roughly 700 feet away. The park is located roughly at the runway’s midpoint, so it provides great viewing whether planes are coming from the east or the west, Ruiz explains. Each day, there are about 300 take-offs and landings. The park is open from 7:30 a.m. to dusk Tuesday through Sunday and from 9:30 a.m. to dusk on Mondays. It features 162 parking spaces (most angled to face the airfield for maximum viewing), numerous benches and a live feed from GRR’s air traffic control tower. It also includes a covered pavilion that offers visitors respite from the elements as well as picnic tables, permanent restrooms and filtered drinking fountains. The view area was created in 1995, with pavilion built in 2016 at a cost of $1.1 million, funded in part by the local Cascade Community Foundation and by airport general revenue. Food Truck Wednesdays started in 2022 with just two food trucks. “We started to realize the park was getting a lot of momentum, so adding food trucks made sense,” Ruiz explains. But the trucks took up valuable visitor parking spaces. So in 2025, the airport expanded the number of parking spaces, and added concrete with dedicated spaces for the food trucks. The area can accommodate eight food trucks and features pedestal electrical outlets so vendors don’t have to use noisy electric generators, notes Ruiz. The additional parking spaces and the circular food truck area cost about $850,000, funded by general airport revenue. Summer Operation Given the climate in Grand Rapids, GRR’s food truck season starts in June and runs through the end of August. Trucks arrive around 10 a.m. and stay as late as 4 p.m. Since the same trucks don’t come every Wednesday, the airport uses an online scheduling tool called SignUpGenius to keep track of the schedule. Vendor names are posted on the viewing park’s Facebook page Wednesday mornings so visitors know what to expect. On average, six to eight trucks are usually on hand. Vendors pay the airport a $100 permit fee per season. “It’s not a revenue maker; that’s not why we’re doing it,” says Ruiz. The airport seeks vendors every year via its viewing park Facebook page and another Facebook page established by the Grand Rapids Food Truck Association. The airport also promotes Food Truck Wednesdays on other social media outlets, such as Instagram. Sponsoring the Wednesday event does not consume much staff time; most of the work occurs at the beginning of the season, when staffers collect fees and process operating permits. “On the first Wednesday of the year, we have someone out there to meet with the truck vendors and show them how to use the circular drive,” Ruiz says. “Other than that, there’s very minimal time and effort required.” Airport Authority Chief Executive Officer Tory Richardson and other GRR leaders often attend Food Truck Wednesdays to mingle with visitors. Measuring Success The airport does not officially track attendance at the viewing park or food trucks, but the parking lot serves as a general barometer. “We gauge its popularity by how full the parking lot is; and during summers, it’s pretty hard to find parking spaces on Wednesdays,” Ruiz reports. “We see a lot of families coming with kids and we also get a fair number of summer camps that bring in children. We have some longer parking spaces to accommodate larger vehicles.”
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