"I've been working in food and beverage since I was ten years old," Roland says. He began as a dishwasher at a restaurant called Bird and Brew, which was owned by a close family friend in Lacey, Washington, a suburb of Olympia.
A self-proclaimed bi-coastal kid, Roland moved from Massachusetts to Washington state and then back to Massachusetts, where he graduated from high school. After that, "I went to [the University of Massachusetts]. I was under some scholarships, and I don't think I saw the inside of a classroom," he admits.
After getting kicked out of that school, he decided to attend Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island, where he finished his bachelor's degree before embracing the traveler's lifestyle. "I went to Europe for a minute, met some chefs, and then I came back when the money ran out," Roland recalls.
He ultimately ended up in the Grand Canyon area, where a cousin of his lived. While working in restaurants around there, he met some people who shared a love for his favorite band, Widespread Panic.
"We would travel from the Grand Canyon to see Panic everywhere, and in our travels to Red Rocks, the first year that they played there, we came back through Crested Butte," he says. "It looked like a Grateful Dead parking lot, and I felt at home instantly."
So after initially returning to Arizona, he convinced a buddy to head straight back to Crested Butte three days later. "We rolled up in his car, and there was a tight housing crunch. ... We were sleeping in his car, just partying and going to the bars until close and then rolling into the woods to sleep in the car," Roland says.
He did eventually secure housing, and spent nearly two decades in the mountain town working in restaurants before moving to Gunnison.
There he contacted an old friend from Massachusetts, and the two set out to open their own eatery. But Roland also split with his wife, who moved to Denver with their daughter. "My kid is everything to me. She's like my world. ... We were two weeks into the opening of the restaurant, and I was like, 'I gotta go,'" he says.
Shortly after arriving in Denver, he linked up with one of his former sous chefs, Preston Yoke, who was starting a food truck called Mile High Cajun. "I had never been on a food truck before, but I jumped on that truck and we took off right away," Roland recalls.
Royale Burger is a half-pound wagyu beef patty with bacon, bleu cheese, onion crispies and "sammie sauces."
Chris Byard
In 2021, with Thompson looking to sell to someone else, Roland made his own offer to buy the truck. "I ended up trading him my minivan, pulling everything I had in the bank and selling my mountain bike. I pulled everything I had together. My offer was clearly less than the other offer, but he went for it," he says.
Now, as the owner of Sokare, Roland is forging ahead while also honoring Thompson by staying true to the original concept of serving pub-fare classics, including chicken wings. "I've been making these wings for like 25 years," Roland says. "They're called 4-way wings because we go through the painstaking effort to brine them for 24 hours, then we smoke them over hickory and then we fry them to order. We toss them in our homemade sauces and then finish them on the grill."
Sokare also serves hand-breaded chicken tenders, fried chicken sandwiches and fried pickles, along with burgers made with wagyu beef on brioche buns.
Roland says the truck's success and growth with the opening at Tributary is all about focus. "We concentrate on doing the little things really well, and I like making people happy with food," he concludes.
For more information, including the truck's calendar, visit sokarefood.com.
