From left: Zack Hoffman, Kyle Barber and Jonathan Arnio pose at their food truck, Wakin' Bacon, in Wall.
Zack Hoffman, Jonathan Arnio and Kyle Barber believe there’s no place like their hometown of Wall to build a business. On April 20, a ribbon-cutting celebrated the successful first year of their food truck, Wakin’ Bacon.
Wakin’ Bacon will start its second year in business over Memorial Day weekend, and most of the time locals can find the truck on a lot at 606 Glenn St., at the only four-way stop in Wall off Exit 110. Until Memorial Day weekend, Wakin’ Bacon serves breakfast and lunch from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
“When summer is in full swing, we try and stay in Wall because it’s our busy time,” said Hoffman, who co-owns Wakin’ Bacon with Arnio.
On Memorial Day weekend, Wakin’ Bacon switches to full time hours, open daily except Wednesdays from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. On Fridays and Saturdays, hours will be 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Wakin’ Bacon will reopen at 5 p.m., and they’ll have a beer tent and live music or an open mic and karaoke. On those nights, Hoffman said their closing time varies between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.
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“We’re open until last call. Usually it’s midnight. We’ll go until 2 a.m. if there’s still a crowd. We get a lot of locals that come and hang out,” Hoffman said.
Wakin’ Bacon’s menu is hearty fare. Breakfast options include eggs and toast, breakfast sandwiches and biscuits and gravy. The lunch menu features turkey deluxe sandwiches, hamburgers and hot dogs, plus occasional menu specials such as tacos and spaghetti and meatballs.
“Once in a while we do special stuff. We have a big smoker grill and it works well for us, and we’ll do steak sandwiches on some special nights, if we know a big weekend’s coming up,” Hoffman said.
This year, Wakin’ Bacon’s menu will add a Wakin’ Bacon Burger – a hamburger with bacon and egg on it – and hot links.
“We just purchased a fryer so we’ll be offering fries as well. We figured we’d get more business if we had French fries with our burgers,” said Hoffman, who formerly worked as a line cook at Wall Drug.
Hoffman said locals already have some definite favorites. Sandwiches like the turkey deluxe fill a void left when Wall’s Subway restaurant closed. What Wakin’ Bacon is already becoming known for is burgers made with locally sourced beef from Kadoka.
“We were getting really good compliments about our burgers, and the biggest rated item that people compliment are our hamburger patties and the taste of them,” Hoffman said.
“We’re on Google and we’ve got a five-star rating we’re pretty proud of,” he said. “We’ve got a really good local crowd. That makes us pretty happy.”
Head chef Barber formerly supervised the kitchen at the Red Rock restaurant in Wall, and then he worked as a hibachi chef in Colorado.
“We definitely found our chef once we saw how good he was at working with people and how good his food turns out,” Hoffman said. “Kyle’s a really fun dude. He can talk to anybody. He’s awesome at the food truck. He’ll give tourists information and talk to them about the area.”
Wakin’ Bacon is a local gathering spot too, because the food truck’s owners keep the lot open on weekends. Hoffman said he bought the lot without knowing quite what to do with it. He and Arnio set up a smoker grill for 10 days during the rally in 2022, and Barber started cooking for them.
“We’ve got a cool hangout spot in the middle of town, so we bought some tents and started hosting hangouts. We’d serve beer and have music, and last year is when we bought the food truck,” Hoffman said.
In addition to serving breakfast and lunch, the Wakin' Bacon food truck is selling packaged ground beef and beef jerky.
Small-town roots
The small-town atmosphere of Wall that Hoffman, Arnio and Barber grew up with is what they want for themselves, their families and their business. Hoffman was born and raised north of Wall. Barber grew up between Wall and Philip. Hoffman and Barber are longtime best friends who both graduated from Wall High School in 2007.
Hoffman and his wife, Lucy, have a 7-year-old son, Maurice. In addition to co-running Wakin’ Bacon, Hoffman works for the Department of Transportation and he was just elected to be the alderman for Ward 2 in Wall.
“I’m excited to work for the people,” Hoffman said. “I love the community I grew up in. I knew I wanted to be involved from a young age, and to be close to family and friends. … I like that small town feel where everybody knows each other.”
Barber, who is single, is an avid golfer, bowler and rock hunter.
Arnio grew up north of Wall and graduated from Wall High School in 2008. In addition to co-running Wakin’ Bacon, Arnio co-owns a commercial janitorial business with his mother. Arnio and his wife, Kayla, have two sons, Jaxon, 16, and Rivers, 12.
Hoffman said Wakin’ Bacon is having its ribbon cutting now because during the first year of business he, Arnio and Barber were focused on getting the business established. The three are looking forward to publicly celebrating their business and their investment in Wall.
“Jonathan and I have families here. They go to school in Wall, and we’re going to keep our roots in Wall so we wanted to create a business to work toward that,” Hoffman said. “We want to try to create it into something that will be a full-time, year-round deal, and we’ll be able to be at our business all the time.”
Wakin’ Bacon is a member of the Wall Badlands Area Chamber of Commerce, Wall Economic Development and the Wall schools’ booster club.
“We’re so fortunate to have a very good local crowd. The local support we have got is phenomenal, and we have people that come in every day to get food. We’re so fortunate to have that kind of support in our community,” Hoffman said.
“We want to support as much small-town stuff as we can. We want to give back to the community as much as they’re giving to us,” he said.
For more information about Wakin’ Bacon, find them on Facebook and Instagram.
