Freehold Faces: Robby Mowla’s Hot Dog Truck

by Colleen Curry on March 10th, 2010 Comment

If you blink, you could miss it. It'll be parked behind the Freehold Tire Center on Center Street one second, and over at the Mr. Good Lube on Main Street the next, crowded out by swarms of mechanics, managers, and car salesman.

Glibert Rodriguez, left, helps owner Robby Mowla sell lunch to Goodyear employees on Wednesday afternoon.

It's Robby Mowla's Hot Dog Truck, a traveling restaurant dispatched from Mowla's home base-- Our House Restaurant in Farmingdale--to service auto dealers and repair shops around the Freehold area.

FinJ: How long have you been pulling your truck up here and selling hot dogs?

Mowla: Since 1995. I was running a small luncheonette back then, in Jackson, and it wasn't doing so well. An old timer that used to come in finally got tired of me whining about slow business, and said to me, "When the customers don't come to you, go to the customers!"

FinJ: Are you here all day? Everyday? Why have we never seen you before?

Mowla: No, we come just for lunch around 1PM, then go off to all the other places we have to sell. All the car dealerships around here, and the Jiffy Lube up the block. We come to places that employees can't get other things for lunch. We're only here for about twenty minutes, though sometimes we'll do breakfast, too.

FinJ: So what do you serve, hot dogs?

Mowla: Hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled chicken sandwiches, cheesesteaks, everything.

FinJ: Everything? In that little truck?

Mowla: We make everything fresh from the restaurant, and then deliver it right over and put it together here.

FinJ: Wait, what restaurant?

Mowla: We own Our House restaurant in Farmingdale, too. Then we have three trucks that deliver from there. All of the food is cooked at our home base in the restaurant in kitchen. There, my brother, my cousin, and my wife all help to make and send out the food.

FinJ: So it's a family business? Where are you from?

Mowla: Well, we live in Farmingdale now, and used to live in Jackson. We've been in the Freehold area for 32 years. But before that, Bangladesh.

FinJ: Great, well good luck!

Mowla: Thanks. Come back and have a hot dog sometime!