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Chef tracks down stolen food truck with help from Twitter followers

Chris Hodgson, of Cleveland, Ohio's Dem and Den Sum, arrived at work Monday morning to find his rolling restaurant had been stolen.

 

Kris Holt

IRL

Posted on Oct 23, 2012   Updated on Jun 2, 2021, 8:56 am CDT

A Cleveland, Ohio, chef turned to Twitter after thieves stole his food truck.

At first, Chris Hodgson thought someone was playing a prank, but the incident turned out to be no laughing matter.

When Hodgson arrived to work, one of his colleagues asked if the Dim and Den Sum truck was in for servicing as it was not in the building. Once the team members realized something was wrong, they sent tweets to almost 6,000 followers from the @dimanddensum account Monday morning.

Unrecorded

“[A fan] sent us an email that said ‘I see your truck across the street,’” Hodgson told Fox 8. “We drove down here and found the truck parked right here.”

The truck, which serves up Asian-inspired gourmet food, was a little the worse for wear, as thieves stripped it of items such as a generator, propane, and steam tables. But Hodgson, a runner-up on the Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race, was simply pleased to have it back.

Dim and Den Sum’s Facebook page noted that an auto repair shop was working on the truck. Hodgson hopes to have the vehicle on the road again next week.

Save for a quick paint job, the thieves would have had little hope of keeping the truck for themselves. The truck has a distinctive finish, and as one Facebook user queried, “How are you going to hide that?”

Photo via Dim and Den Sum/Facebook

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*First Published: Oct 23, 2012, 1:26 pm CDT