Meet Matt Rossi, who saved Philly’s largest food truck commissary from lawsuits and debt

Rachel Knable was in a panic. She’d just learned that the garage where she had parked her Stuff’d Buns food truck for the past five years was suddenly at risk of closing. The owner of the Industrial Food Truck commissary in Southwest Philadelphia, Gary Koppelman, who’d been embroiled in multiple lawsuits, had lost his lease in April over late payments.

Now Knable and several fellow tenants in the food truck garage were scrambling to find a new operator for the facility — within a couple weeks — or risk being locked out.

“I just didn’t know what was happening or where I was going to go, and this is my livelihood,” said Knable, whose truck specializes in sliders.

“I can’t tell you how scared everyone was because we didn’t know what was happening,” said Jessica Caldwell, another longtime tenant who owns the Red Stone Pizza truck and manages Dos Hermanos Tacos for her husband, Manuel Estrada and his brother, Gabriel Lezama.

With just 10 days to go until shutdown of the largest indoor food truck garage in the city, a successor was found in Matt Rossi, the owner of two Nick’s Roast Beef locations in Northeast Philadelphia, who also operates several food trucks and happens to be president of the Pennsylvania Mobile Food Association. Rossi, who paid $10,000 in back rent, was able to negotiate a new lease, begin renovations and keep the lights on for the garage’s 11 existing tenants, down from 30 in 2019.

“We came in to keep the doors open. That was my immediate goal,” says Rossi, who’s already added six new tenants and renamed it the Philadelphia Food Trucks Commissary. “But I’m excited to be a part of the next chapter here. And it’s only going to help us as a business and an industry.”

Caldwell was shocked at the speed of the transition, but not surprised that trouble had been brewing. Only one of the four commissary ovens was working by the end of last year. Spare truck parts were lying everywhere. And wild animals would occasionally wander in, including a wide-eyed deer that greeted Knable one night when she arrived with her truck: “It was chaos.”

Koppelman’s departure from the commissary he opened in 2016 marked the beginning of the end for a central but controversial figure in Philly’s food truck scene over the past decade. USA Mobile, an earlier commissary he had built in Brewerytown in 2013, closed after a fire in 2016. The ensuing five-year legal battle between Koppelman and the manufacturer of a rice cooker alleged to have started the fire concluded earlier this year when a jury awarded him and his partner $261,500 in damages, although $70,000 was carved out for direct payments to truck owners whose businesses were damaged in the blaze. After legal fees and other costs, Koppelman says he and his partner ultimately only received about 10% of that total.

His exit from the food truck scene, though, was assured in June when two suits alleging fraud against him ended in settlements. Koppleman agreed to pay over $532,000 in total damages.

“I’m not in the industry any longer,” said Koppelman, who founded the national MobileFoodNews website, which became active on social media in late 2010. He then went on to open the commissaries, including a fabrication facility at IFT in Southwest Philly that built and repaired food trucks. “Doing fabrication was a big loss for us, the learning curves, continuously changing out of employees because we just couldn’t keep people.”

Those challenges, plus his questionable business practices, resulted in a string of disgruntled customers, detailed in a 2021 Inquirer investigation, who paid big money to buy or lease for trucks from Koppelman since 2014, but instead got long delays and the belated delivery of trucks that were often defective, unfinished or unsafe — if they ever arrived at all.

Among them were the two businesses that just won judgments against Koppelman in June, Fox & Son and Farina Pasta & Noodles. They each spent about $75,000 for trucks, but never received operational vehicles after months-long delays. They were awarded $371,862 and $160,670 respectively for damages and lost revenues.

“It’s been three years I’ve been going through this and lost all this money fighting with this guy, so it feels really good,” says Fox & Son owner Rebecca Foxman, who said she doubts she’ll ever recoup that settlement. Koppelman has a long history of unpaid civil judgments and liens. “The main goal for me was that he just couldn’t do this to anyone else anymore.”

“I’m satisfied knowing that he can’t keep doing this,” agreed Daniel Lee of Farina, who pivoted to a small brick-and-mortar location near Rittenhouse Square with a growing fast-casual concept built around fresh noodles. “I may still open a food truck as a redemption thing, because what I’ve learned through this is that you can’t quit.”

Koppleman maintains the allegations against him are overblown, and says he was forced to accept the settlements because, “I don’t have any income coming in...and I couldn’t afford [the legal fees] to keep fighting.”

He said he’s focused now on dealing with health issues — recovering from cancer that’s now in remission and heart damage he said resulted from chemotherapy, as well as a brain tumor — and assuring a smooth transition at the commissary.

“No matter what you think of me, my biggest concern was for this industry and that (the commissary) and these businesses do not shut down,” he said.

For those that have survived, the suburban food truck scene “is booming now,” says Caldwell, as trucks have become favored options to cater private outdoor events. Mobile food vendors still do well around university campuses during the school year since students have returned, says Rossi, but vending lags in Center City where office buildings remain under capacity . Regional membership in the PMFA, he said, is down from 125 prior to the pandemic to about 90 active food trucks and carts.

“One of the major goals with the commissary is to begin ramping up the numbers in the Philadelphia region,” says Rossi, who projects a maximum capacity of 17 food trucks and 20 carts at the Philadelphia Food Truck Commissary.

Next up for Rossi is the new fabrication business he launched in June to modify food trucks and trailers in a separate space adjacent to the commissary. Unlike IFT’s setup, that mechanical work will be done in a separate facility, not one shared with the food preparations of a commissary.

Rossi also envisions a business incubator there with multiple resources, a central event-booking agency for tenants and perhaps even a co-op for purchasing ingredients.

“I love the idea of being able to help somebody from beginning to end here,” he said. “This is something I could get super enthralled with: helping new businesses get started and maybe even develop into a brick and mortar.”

It’s a bridge between two worlds Rossi knows well as the owner of two restaurants and nine food trucks, which he stores at another commissary and catering facility in Willow Grove. Among those is a Fox & Son-branded truck that Rossi licensed from Foxman to begin selling her gluten-free corn dogs, cheese curds and fries.

“It’s a great release, because now I don’t feel like I’m missing out on opportunities,” said Foxman.

Between the new commissary, his own fleet of trucks and leadership role at PMFA, Rossi has become a pivotal figure in the future success of Philadelphia’s mobile food industry.

“He went out of his way to help us, many of whom he really didn’t know, to make sure we were able to stay in business.,” says Knable of Stuff’d Buns. “I knew of him before (taking over the commissary). But now he’s just doing everything — and it’s exciting.”