WAUPUN — The Waupun City Council is considering changes to the food truck ordinance, and potential changes to the “food truck alley” downtown.
The Council met Tuesday, June 26, 2025 at the Special Common Council meeting to discuss the topic, among other items.
The City has received feedback from food truck vendors and local businesses on the issue, and City Administrator Kathy Schlieve presented some of the recommendations to the Council.
The current ordinance (City Ordinance 11.025 Mobile Food Vehicles) sets a license fee of $250 per year, which is one of the items they received feedback about. Another provision also prohibits food trucks from being parked within 100 feet of an open food establishment.
“Right now we have an annual fee and there’s a need for a daily or event fee, so we would recommend adding that immediately,” Schlieve said.
This, along with other feedback on the matter, prompted Schlieve to request input from the City Council on the ordinance.
Before ceding the floor to the Council, Mayor Rohn Bishop introduced Cheyanne Sloan, manager at Our Bar, inviting her to speak during this item. Our Bar regularly hosts a food truck on Main St out front of their location at 433 E Main St.
Mayor Bishop then read a message he received from Our Bar owner Bob Barsch about his concerns, saying that the food truck vendors he’s worked with have reported negative experiences in the food truck alley.
One vendor told him that they made more profit parking on the street in front of Our Bar in just two days than parking in the food truck alley for five days, and that the low profits make it harder to justify coming back to Waupun if they have to use the food truck alley.
“I understand that someone needs to justify this addition to Waupun, but I don’t believe it should be at the expense of our small businesses,” the message from Barsch read. “If the trucks are no longer willing to come now, you can bet they are telling each other the same.”
“Bottom line is, they don’t need Waupun but I believe having them is good for the community,” the message continued. “I for one cannot in good faith ask a truck to come knowing that the visibility for them in the alley is horrible and it will likely fail.”
Mayor Bishop noted that the ordinance was originally deployed in September, and that food trucks would often be parked right outside of Our Bar.
However, being located next to Mateo’s Restaurant, Our Bar having food trucks park outside wasn’t an issue as Mateo’s was only open from 7AM to 3PM. But as of July 1, Mateo’s expanded operational hours to 8PM every day, which would prohibit food trucks from parking in that location under the current 100ft ordinance.
Our Bar only serves frozen pizza as a food item and is not considered a restaurant by the City.
Mayor Bishop pointed out the intention of that provision was to prevent a food truck from parking in front of a restaurant they would directly compete with—using a taco truck parking outside of Los Ramos Mexican Restaurant as an example.
Cheyanne Sloan was then invited to speak. She pointed out that one of the motivations for the food truck alley was a lack of parking downtown, but a food truck only takes up one parking spot on Main St, while a business such as Hoyahophousebrewing bring in food trucks who take up several spaces in their parking lot, forcing vehicles to park elseware to patronize their business and events.
Mayor Bishop explained that while this is true, the Hoyahophousebrewing parking lot is private property, and they can’t enforce ordinances about public streets on private parking lots.
Alderman Pete Kaczmarski asked if the 100ft rule only applies to Main St and doesn’t apply behind the restaurant, or if it is for all City-owned property—including streets, alleys, and public parking lots.
City Administrator Kathy Schleive said it is only written as 100ft, with no provision specifying an exemption for location or direction from the business.
Mayor Bishop added that Tractor Supply often has food trucks in their parking lot, even though Village Garden II is closeby. Alderman Westphal pointed out that their lot is a private parking lot.
Mayor Bishop explained that a lot of the feedback they’re hearing about the ordinance is second hand, mostly from businesses such as Our Bar that regularly invite food trucks to park near their place of business to draw in a larger crowd.
The biggest feedback they’ve received is reducing the fees to open a food truck in Waupun. However, Mayor Bishop pointed out they can’t make it too cheap since it wouldn’t be fair to every other restaurant in town.
“So we have to find that happy medium where they’re still paying something, because the existing businesses have to, but we can still have food trucks come into town without charging them so much that they cancel on Our Bar and go to Beaver Dam because it’s so much cheaper,” Mayor Bishop said.
Schlieve said she was looking at the food truck ordinance in Beaver Dam to see what works for them in regards to licensing and fees. According to Schlieve, they also have an annual fee but it’s “considerably less” than the one currently set for Waupun.
Schlieve also said that the current ordinance does not prohibit parking on Main St, just that the City will not reserve parking spaces for food trucks. Main St also has a parking time limit of two hours, and the City would be able to ticket a food truck parked for over that time frame—though it was not said if it ever had.
Mayor Bishop pointed out the popularity of food trucks, where he would go to Jud-son’s and Our Bar when they’d have a food truck out and people would be at both bars eating food from the food truck.
Jud’s has also renovated this spring with a new kitchen serving some restaurant items.
Alderman Dan Siebers said that two restaurants can be next to each other without an issue.
Alderman Westphal pointed out that there’s a provision about consent from a restaurant for the 100ft distance. He went on to explain that it doesn’t bother him that businesses holding events puts more parking on the street, suggesting that the license include a rented parking spot for the day.
City Attorney Dan VandeZande asked if there was any pushback from restaurants about the food truck ordinance, which no one heard any. He also pointed out that some restaurant chains have a marketing strategy that includes inviting food trucks to their location to bring more people in, as more variety can draw a crowd to both the host establishment and the food truck—though he didn’t know if that was the experience of any of the restaurants in town.
Schlieve said that Mateo’s previously having been open only in the mornings did not become a problem for Our Bar next door.
Mayor said the original ordinance was passed with good intent, but that it may have missed the mark.
Alderman Dan Siebers said that the ordinance may want to consider one-day one-event licenses or even consecutive permits, though he didn’t think the City should be in the business of reserving parking spots.
Alderman Westphal said that the licenses could alternatively be determined based on location and only given a specific parking spot, and the City could deny a license if they want a location too close to a similar restaurant.
Alderman Siebers then suggested reserving the parking spots in front of the alley to food trucks for little to no fee, which creates incentives for customers to use the alley and is still close to Our Bar.
Schlieve said the City would find it difficult to guarantee reserved parking spots, and that food trucks usually only come when an event comes in that draws people in.
Cheyanne said that Our Bar has never had to pay food trucks to come to Waupun in front of their business on Main St.
Alderman Kaczmarski suggested the City could loan traffic cones to the businesses that want a food truck at their location, so they could put the cones out as they see a spot open up—removing the DPW from the equation and making the business responsible for keeping a spot open.
Alderman Siebers suggested waiving the daily fee for food trucks that use the food truck alley, which Alderwoman Bobbi Jo Kunz agreed with. Electricity is already free for food trucks using the alley.
Mayor Bishop suggested having a provision limiting the hours that food trucks could be in the street, particularly during busy hours of the day.
Alderman Kaczmarski suggested getting more activities and events for the space and making food truck vendors more aware of the incentives to use the food truck alley.
Mayor Bishop asked Cheyanne what Our Bar would like the City to do about the ordinance. Cheyanne said they don’t need the food trucks to be immediately outside of Our Bar, but that they do want higher visibility than the food truck alley provides for people driving down Main St.
Alderman Mike Matoushek said he agrees with the ideas from Aldermen Siebers and Kunz, suggesting that the City could try to get the food trucks to park on Main St in front of the food truck alley, between Madeline Clothing Company and Stone + Suede.
Cheyanne said that the food trucks usually set up outside Our Bar for about five hours per visit.
City Clerk Angie Hull said that food trucks will often call and ask about the fees, currently set at $250 per year, which disincentivises many food trucks from coming to Waupun.
VandeZande suggested the next time a food truck calls to ask what cities have a food ordinance/license/fee system for food trucks that they like. Kaczmarski asked Schlieve if they were going to get feedback from businesses, which they will.
Mayor Bishop then added that he often gets asked by people in the community about why the City spent so much money on the food truck alley, but he said that the City received a grant which covered the renovation.
Kunz asked if they could get a graph of when food trucks park in Main St compared to the dedicated alley and private parking lots.
Schlieve said that food trucks on private property are not subject to the fee. She also mentioned that almost always when food trucks are in Waupun they are here for an event and not just showing up.
Westphal added two nitpicks about provisions in the ordinance, one about requiring a triangle traffic sign on the vehicle, and another about prohibiting lighted signs.
Mielke suggested that food trucks be charged no fee for using private parking lots or the food truck alley, but require a fee for City streets.
“The goal is to drive traffic toward it,” Siebers said, agreeing with Mielke.
They also expressed interest in renaming the “food truck alley” to something more general use as a downtown event and hangout space, though no ideas were presented.
The area is the site of the annual downtown Christmas tree lighting and the location of one of the annual Sculpture Tour sculptures, this year hosting “Catching the Wind” which was unveiled last month.
The agenda item was discussion-only so no action was taken on the matter during the meeting. City Administrator Schlieve noted that they were prepared for updating the fees rate at the next meeting, if it was the direction the Council wanted to take.
Also discussed at this meeting was consideration for a new ordinance that would limit the number of rummage sales that can be held at a given property per year.
