A Toast to Toasted

By Laura Breen Galante

What began as a scramble to survive has become a mission to serve for the team behind the Toasted food truck

When eateries shut down in the spring of 2020, Toasted restaurants owner Megan Yarmuth took to the streets in her food truck. She mobilized her menu of yummy gourmet grilled cheeses and burgers to keep her four brick-and-mortar restaurants afloat. But she met some really neat people on the road, and her mission quickly became much bigger.

In March, when local schools first closed, Megan repurposed her business to offer free kids meals on weekdays in an effort to help feed students who were dependent on the school system for lunch. Megan and her staff served more than 1,400 meals to kids between March and May.

“This was a thank-you to the community that helped get us to where we are,” says Megan.

And as so often happens, good deeds beget more good deeds, and the Toasted food truck soon became a symbol of full bellies and warm hearts for those who needed them most during the COVID-19 crisis.

Megan’s generosity caught the attention of local philanthropist Andy Pargh. Through his Pargh Foundation, Andy gave the Toasted team the financial support to feed as many people in need as they could. Megan then partnered with The Jewish Pavilion, a nonprofit organization committed to serving those in senior-living communities throughout Central Florida. Together they fed the staff at about a dozen local nursing homes and assisted-living facilities.

“We are helping to honor and thank those people during the pandemic who have been working tirelessly, and we’re doing it with a bit of a Jewish spin,” says Megan.

Next, she hit the highway to take the Toasted truck north to Hillel, the center for Jewish life at Stetson University. There, they fed first responders in the DeLand area.

“We fed nurses from AdventHealth and Halifax Health, too,” Megan says. “We also visited tons of fire stations and police stations over that time period.”

During that time, the Toasted team dished out about 1,500 meals.

“We’re following the phases of the coronavirus,” says Megan. “We fed first responders, and now we are focusing on the volunteers and staff who are leading the vaccination effort.”

Teaming with the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando, Megan is again firing up the truck to feed the staff and volunteers at different vaccination sites. The truck recently visited the Orange County Convention Center three times as well as the vaccination site by the Orlando International Airport. Lunches were served to more than 400 registration volunteers as well as off-duty EMTs who volunteered to administer the vaccinations.

Another partnership with the Kinneret Council on Aging allowed Megan and her yellow-and-blue truck to serve lunches for seniors in quarantine. The team also served educators at The Roth Family JCC. In addition to lunches, the Toasted crew created burger boxes for the employees to take home so they could cook with their families.

“We wanted to give them a break from the stress of everything,” explains Megan.

During the last 12 months, it’s estimated that Megan, her staff, and her trusty food truck have served about 3,200 free meals.

“We were able to reach so many in the community in a way that they felt comfortable eating,” Megan explains. “No one was feeling comfortable eating inside, but they were fine eating from the truck because it was outside in the open air, and we could go to them.”

Megan is quick to point out that kindness is a full circle, and none of this would have been possible without the generous support of her benefactors.

“It’s not just me,” says Megan. “It’s amazing the people you meet. I never would have guessed a year ago that we would be doing even half of the things we’re doing now, or know half of the people that I know now.”

“Megan was a true pleasure to work with,” says Andy, founder of The Pargh Foundation, “and we’re continuing our program at the JCC and to serve lunches to the vaccine sites. She’s amazing!”

All the community service has also allowed Megan to keep her core team of employees on payroll and keep them busy inside the truck.

“The people we’ve partnered with have become such special and important people to us,” says Megan. “I hope we never have to live through this again, but we will never forget this time, that’s for sure.”