It’s taken a little longer than expected, but this weekend, the owners of the Boat Yard food truck venue at 831 Yampa St. are planning to celebrate the completion of Steamboat Springs’ newest community gathering space.

“On Saturday, we’re planning on having an event there to kind of kick it off,” said Cory Wagner, executive vice president with Western Centers Inc., which owns the property. “We’re going to have food trucks out there, we’re going to have some live music and just some fun activities to celebrate the opening.”

The Boat Yard will celebrate from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 17 at the new community space. The first 50 people will get a Boat Yard T-shirt to tie-dye.

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Western Centers announced that it was going to turn the vacant lot, which is located between Backdoor Sports and Aurum, into a food truck park in August 2021. The spot is permitted for up to five food trucks at a time, but Wagner said the owners are setting their targets on having three food trucks, and seeing how that works.

“We have approval for up to five food trucks,” Wagner said. “That’s what the city granted us — we could have five — but our intent is we’re probably just going to start at three, and we can obviously build it up and add other food trucks to it when need be.”

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He said those looking to find a place to eat downtown can expect to have a variety of vendors at the Boat Yard. The first weekend, Après Burger Bistro, Mountain Berry Bowls and one other vendor are expected to be featured. Mountain Berry Bowls has had a truck at the location off-and-on through the summer and Après Burger Bistro, which has a full-service restaurant at 2500 Village Drive, will expand it’s reach with a food truck option.

Wagner said in addition to hosting food trucks, the spot will also be open to groups of individuals who might want to lease the property to hold public or private events.

“It’s a very casual space for the community to enjoy,” he said. “Now that we have all the infrastructure on-site it gives us a lot more flexibility to host and accommodate a lot of those different things. We’ve already had people reach out about private parties and events and things like that, as well.”

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The goal is to create a venue that will attract a number of food trucks and provide a variety of good food. He said the space will also allow the public to find the perfect spot to enjoy the food along the rolling waters of the Yampa River. The park has a grass lawn and picnic tables where folks can gather and enjoy lunch or a treat.

“It will be available to them year-round,” Wagner said, “That will obviously depend on the weather, the snow and things like that. There may be days here and there that it just doesn’t make sense for the vendors to be out there. The intent is that it would be a year-round opportunity for them, and that it would be open anytime people are outside and walking around.

“It would have been nice to have this done much sooner, but we’re excited to have it done now and be able to show it to the public and have the public in the community start to utilize it,” Wagner said.

John F. Russell is the business reporter at the Steamboat Pilot & Today. To reach him, call 970-871-4209, email jrussell@SteamboatPilot.com or follow him on Twitter @Framp1966.