Popular Clintonville food truck stolen over the weekend; owners manage to track it down with help of community, police

At 8 a.m. Saturday morning, Jesus Soriano, owner of the La Pablonita food truck received a phone call he wasn’t expecting: His food truck, a family-run operation, had been stolen.

“I got a call from the barbershop owner at 8 a.m. in the morning because someone passing by called her and asked why the food trailer was missing,” he said.

According to Soriano, who involved the police and did a good amount of detective work himself, the truck was likely stolen just before 4 a.m. on Dec. 4. With the help of the Columbus police, he discovered video footage of what appears to be a red pickup truck hauling the food truck through Clintonville at 4:01 a.m.. Soriano said there are other videos of the truck with La Pablonita in that time frame that they’ve discovered as well.

“We were shocked to find out what had occurred. We didn’t know how to think or react,” Soriano said. “But we were also lost in a mix of emotions like sadness and anger and disappointment of why someone would do this to us.”

After several days of searching, though, the food truck was found in a local impound lot. According to Soriano, while the lot was closed, it was apparent from a distance that some of the truck’s equipment had been taken.

“Thanks to the community who called it in as soon as they spotted it, our chase led us to this impound lot, where we have yet to see what condition it is due to it being closed last night. But we can already tell it’s been gutted and missing a lot,” Soriano said. 

He said La Poblanito plans to reopen, but he doesn’t yet know when.

“We are happy to have located the food truck but are hurting as we know it will be a while before we are open again,” Soriano said.

The food truck has launched a GoFundMe campaign for the stolen items.

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