Johnny’ s Grub to Go
The Sampler
The Food Truck craze that has been sweeping the nation has seemingly bypassed Brown County, due in large part to zoning issues— the county requires the trucks to operate in areas zoned for business, which effectively limits them to a few spots in Nashville, Gnaw Bone, and Bean Blossom.
But there is one other place, out on State Road 46 East, at the intersection of Yellowwood Road— Knights Corner.
When there was a gas station and country store there and the Knight family sold fast food from a kitchen inside— that seemed perfectly natural. But now that the family has transitioned into the solid waste business, well, you might assume that a trash collection depot is not going to be the ideal place to park a food truck. But, you’ d be wrong. Ever since it opened, Johnny’ s Grub to Go has been doing a bustling business, offering a strange, hybrid Americandiner-meets-Filipino-street-hawker menu.
Mrs. Sampler always said that the first person to open a Chinese restaurant in Brown County would have a gold mine on their hands, and from the looks of the consistent lunchtime lines around Johnny’ s, they have tapped into a bonanza.
You can get a cheeseburger and fries, or a fish sandwich— but why would you, when you can get an Asian chicken rice bowl or adobo, a Filipino dish made with a garlic / vinegar and spice marinade?
56 Our Brown County • May / June 2019
Like a lot of people, Ginger Knight, originally from the Philippines, was obsessed with the Food Network and drawn to programs about the burgeoning Food Truck movement. Her husband, John Knight took notice.
“ Johnny” got a food truck and parked it at the family business, which has always been a kind of community collection spot, about halfway between Nashville and Bloomington. The menu is extensive. On the American favorites side, you’ ll find everything from a chili cheeseburger with onion rings and a monster egg-and-bacon burger to cheese steak, pulled pork, or a Johnny’ s style home-made corn dog.
On the Filipino side, there’ s beef tapa served with fried rice, hotdog, and egg, or Pancit-Filipino stir-fried rice noodles with beef, pork, or tofu. How about a crab Rangoon, or beef Siomai( a stuffed, fried wonton)?
Further blurring the international boundaries of cuisine on the Johnny’ s Grub to Go menu:“ Tortilla pizza” and“ Japanese style tenderloin.”
Like Filipinos, Hawaiians and other wise and noble Asian peoples, I love Spam.
That’ s right, good old, American-made Spam. And I would challenge you to find a breaded and deep-fried Spam sandwich anywhere else in Brown County. I didn’ t order it, in the end, but somehow it just tickles me to see it on the menu.