Robert Dominy isn't new to the food truck scene, but his latest concept is. Farmhouse5280 launched on January 20, serving a completely gluten-free menu.

Dominy's career in the culinary world began in 2005, when he started working at a McDonald's as a teenager. From there he attended culinary school, participated in the Disney World College Program (an internship for students) and cooked on a cruise ship out of Hawaii for six months before returning to the East Coast, where he worked in the fine-dining scene in Boston.

"I was like, okay, this is not bad, but there are a bunch of egocentric people," he recalls. After about three years, he headed to Colorado to look for new opportunities, landing a gig with Occasions Catering and, later, Finley's Pub in Wash Park, which is where he met Kaley Barrett. "[Kaley and I] just felt like we needed to do something else," Dominy says.

Not able to afford a brick-and-mortar restaurant, they decided to try the food truck route. "We got denied by every bank we asked," Dominy remembers, but that didn't dissuade the aspiring business owners. "I literally just emailed everybody on Facebook, Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist" in search of someone with a truck who was willing to finance the venture, Dominy explains. "I got told no about twenty times."
In September 2019, a woman in Castle Rock agreed to sell him a truck for payments of $1,000 a month, and soon after, Dominy and Barrett launched Barrett & Pratt Provisions. "We just went as hard as we could for about a year," Dominy says.

The team's work paid off. Once they had numbers to show they were successful, they were able to secure funding backers. "We got a loan and paid the woman off right away. We also paid off the other loan last year and are completely debt-free after only two years," Dominy notes.

While Barrett & Provisions had a successful run, Barrett recently returned to her home state of Maine. Now solo, Dominy decided to completely rebrand as Farmhouse5280. "Right now, I'm focusing on launching this new truck concept to help connect to the underrepresented celiac and gluten-free community," he says.
Although Farmhouse5280 is new, Dominy is already excited about its future. "It's hard with this style of food, since many folks out there still have the stigma in mind that gluten-free food can only be bad," he explains. "I'd really like to help change that stigma by being a good food truck that just happens to be a little more than what you might expect to find."

From Buffalo wings and Korean fried chicken fingers to hamburgers and fried pickles, Farmhouse5280 serves up delicious pub-style grub that just so happens to be celiac-friendly. The truck also serves daily specials, but no matter what you order, be sure to add on the hand-cut fries.

"Someday in the future, I'd like to find a location and help other small businesses start up that are focused on allergen-safe food," Dominy says. In the meantime, you can find the truck's schedule at farmhouse5280.com.