Knowing Your Neighbors: Junior’s Backyard Grill

CLOQUET, Minn. –There’s a new food truck in the Northland and it’s bringing some home cooked meals on wheels to the Cloquet area.

Junior’s backyard grill had their grand opening June 13th, and it came after a long time in the making.

The team originally planned on opening a traditional restaurant, but eventually found themselves running one on wheels.

“It’s kind of been a long time coming,” said Theresa Halvorson, Chefs Assistant. “Been talking about doing this for at least ten years and in the last few years COVID kind of stopped us, slowed us down, we kind of looked at brick and mortar and decided we didn’t want to go brick and mortar route.”

Junior’s serves up burgers, reubens, wings and much more. The chef of the food truck has cooking in his family as he learned the skill from his mother.

“He’s been cooking his whole life his mom was a cook, they owned the lumberjack lounge for many years and did lots of events and stuff there and
she was the matriarch of the family and did all the cooking and Scott kind of took that over,” said Halvorson.

The chef has lived in the Cloquet area his whole live and running a food truck gives him the chance to provide affordable food to his community.

“Junior’s Backyard Grill kind of our motto is a new opportunity to have quality food at a reasonable price. An affordable, reasonable price, and that’s kind of what we’re doing here,” said Halvorson. “This is just an opportunity to have a different variety, a different flavor, a different taste.”

One young customer of the trailer said he heard the food was good and that he just had to order the mozzarella sticks.

“I really like the cheese, but when you get it from a food truck it just tastes way better,” said customer Hendrik Rennquist.

He also said that it is awesome to have a good food truck nearby to grab a quick bite.

“You can sit outside and feel the heat and talk to friends and family,” said Rennquist.

Junior’s food truck will be sticking around the Cloquet area and will continue to serve up quality meals.

If you’re looking to grab a bite, Junior’s Backyard Grill provides their hours and location schedule on their Facebook page.