Did You Know There’s An Aunt Annie’s Pretzel Food Truck in Ky?

I'm drooling as I type!  This is the stuff of news dreams are made of.  Last weekend I stumbled across to my delight a real-life Aunt Annie's Pretzel Truck and it travels.

Angel here and I have always seen the Aunt Annie's inside malls when we travel and of course, I frequent the one in Evansville if I get a chance.

The Aunt Annie's Trucks are a franchise and each is independently owned and operated.

I reached out to the owners Brian and Samantha Hardesty (and their sister who is a silent partner), of Elizabethtown, Ky, and asked them how they got started;

We’ve been married for 13 years and we have 5 kids that range in age from 2 to 18 who are super involved in sports so we are constantly on the go! We have been members of White Mills Christian Church for the 16 years that we have been together. By trade, my husband was in recruiting in the National Guard, but he is no longer on ADOS (Active Duty Operational Support) orders. I taught middle school science for 8 years and truly loved it, but when the opportunity came available for me to stay home with our youngest, I took it.

We started the business after I worked part time from home, handling social media, marketing and scheduling for another franchisee. When they expressed interest in selling the business, we were ready to take over. Unfortunately, that business transaction did not pan out, but we had already been to training in Lancaster PA and found another truck in New Jersey. We picked up our big blue baby, who we named Jersey, on February 5th 2020 and have been operating since. We knew this was the right move for us as we knew the history of Anne Byler and her family. This business grew because they wanted to ‘give back’ to others and to provide free marriage counseling to enrich other relationships. We knew we wanted to be able to give back to non profit organizations by providing fundraising opportunities. Since our beginning in February, we have been blessed to have donated nearly $30,000 to non profit organizations throughout KY and IN. We have also provided over 800 pretzels to first responders during the Covid pandemic.

They usually travel within about a 150 mile radius of Elizabethtown and typically visit a town once every 6-10 weeks depending on the distance and size of the town. However, they are super excited to announce they are in the process of expanding and will be visiting more towns and cities in the near future!  Fingers crossed one of those cities is Owensboro.

If you are interested in booking them it’s super easy, send a request through Facebook or via email (auntieannesofcentralky@gmail.com) with the specifics! Samantha says they love visiting new areas.  Book early so they can make sure licensing is taken care of, the point of contact has secured us a great, highly visible location (with access to a public restroom, water & electric is bonus), and then boom you're booked!

They can even do fundraisers for sports teams and non-profits and they can also do on site field trips and tie in curriculum standards.

Their weekly schedule can be found pinned to the top of their Facebook page, but if people have specific requests, send them a message and the will do their best to reply as fast as possible.

Their mission is simple;

To spread kindness and success to our employees and communities around us! I have never seen a hot fresh pretzel not bring a smile to someone’s face. When we started this business, that is truly family owned and operated at the beginning of the year, our goal was simply to be able to pay off our truck and offer as many fundraising opportunities as possible.

Full confession I will drive all the way to Elizabethtown for this...NO SHAME!