Paul Bass Photos
The pastrami egg and cheese sandwiches were flying at a George Street construction site Monday as Jillian Ledic kept a food truck moving so her moms could bring some of the trickle-down dollars of New Haven’s construction boom to Vegas.
Ledic steered the Phil’s Canteen food truck onto the lot at George and Sherman, where an excavation crew is prepping the site for Yale New Haven Hospital’s planned $838 million neurosciences center, in time for the 9:15 a.m. break.
It was the fifth of 11 stops she had planned to bring coffee, Ring Dings, Cheez Doodles, muffins, chips, and sandwiches — bacon egg and cheese, sausage egg and cheese, meatball — to the workers building the fast-evolving new New Haven.
Usually her stepmom Andrea Tarantino makes those rounds. Tarantino retired as a pipefitter on New Haven construction sites and, six months later, purchased the Phil’s truck business, which has peddled food on local streets since 1963. She purchased it along with her wife Michale Ledic (Jillian’s mom). New Haven’s construction boom has kept them busy; they carved out two weeks for a Las Vegas vacation.
The construction workers still needed their fuel. So Jillian took two weeks off from her post office job to keep the truck moving.
“They went to Vegas. I got stuck doing this,” Ledic said while collecting ones and fives and ten-dollar bills during a conversation on the “Word on the Street” portion of WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program.”
She was smiling, though. She said she enjoys the gig, especially the meeting-people part.
“This is my last day. It’s going pretty good.”
She awoke at 5 a.m. to cook the sandwiches and prepare the truck. She began the daily rounds at American Medical Response. At 9 a.m. she hit break time for workers building 398 apartments at 201 Munson St., then hustled over to the George Street site for the 9:15 break.
LaJeanna Ratchford (pictured), a laborer for subcontractor John J. Brennan Constructino, directed the truck onto the site, then picked up a beef patty and package of cookies.
With just a few pastrami sandwiches (the hottest seller) left, Ledic hopped back in the truck. Next stop: Day Street, where workers are building a new apartment complex on the grave of the Antillean Manor coops. Then Lafayette Street. Then the train station.
Then home — and back to eight hours a day at post office.
Click on the video to watch the full conversation with Jillian Ledic on the“Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s“LoveBabz LoveTalk” program.
Click here and see below for other“Word on the Street” episodes.
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