Strake Sandwich Co

Strake Sandwich Co runs its truck window the way a sit-down kitchen runs a line. The food comes out of a trailer parked behind a cannabis shop on Collingwood's First Street, yet the sandwiches land stacked with layered proteins, house-made sauces, and deliberate crunch — built closer to a chef's counter than to the usual order-and-go fare. Sandwiches, smash burgers, and loaded fries and tots are the entire premise, and each is treated as a full plate rather than something to eat standing up. The reach runs well past the footprint, and that gap is the first thing most regulars come to know about it.

The headliners make the case fastest. The Brisket Smash Burger stacks an eight-ounce brisket-and-chuck patty with cheddar, barbecue aioli, pickles, and honey mustard, while the Farmhouse Griller — Strake's own signature — piles breaded chicken, braised pork, smoked pork belly, cheddar, barbecue aioli, crispy onions, and arugula into a single sandwich. The Brandied Apple Cubano sets braised pork shoulder and smoked pork belly against brandied apples and cheddar, and the Crispy Chicken Crunch finishes fried chicken with maple glaze, sriracha aioli, apple slaw, and dill pickles. Brisket returns in a Philly cheesesteak and in the Beef and Bacon Brisket, the chicken lane widens into a Pesto Chicken Club and a Pulled Pork Hoagie, and the sides refuse to sit quietly: Loaded Tater Tots and Dill Pickle Lovers Fries are built to be ordered as the main event.

The dish that gives the menu its centre of gravity came from a trip east. By Brandon Rodger's own account in local reporting, a stretch in Halifax showed him how hard the Maritimes lean on lobster rolls, and he decided Collingwood should have a serious one of its own. The East Coast Lobster Roll brings lobster and crab together with tarragon, lemon zest, dill butter, crispy potato, and pea shoots — a coastal build set down in a landlocked sandwich truck. The sourcing carries the same intent: lobster through Ontario Fisheries Products, buns from COBS Bread Bakery, and Covered Bridge chips alongside, all per local reporting. The menu bills it as a customer favourite, and it is the first dish most people name when they describe Strake. It is the clearest read on how the kitchen thinks, and the same care surfaces again in the brisket and the tots.

Strake opened in June 2022, when Collingwood widened its food-truck permissions and Rodger took one of the new Millennium Park permits. Local reporting traces his path from cooking in other people's kitchens to running his own window, and the menu reads like someone finally making the food he had been waiting to make. Strake has since settled into its First Street setting behind the cannabis shop, an offbeat address that has worked its way into how people give directions to it. The truck, the patio, and the picnic tables keep the pace quick, even as the plates it sends out are anything but rushed.

Value here comes from how complete an order eats rather than how little it costs. Sandwiches arrive with fresh-cut fries, apple slaw, or potato salad, so lunch lands as a full meal instead of a placeholder between activities, and portions run big enough that the loaded tots can stand in for one on their own. The patio is dog-friendly, the seating runs to picnic tables, and the schedule leans to the back half of the week, which suits the people most likely to turn up: skiers in winter, beach and trail traffic in summer, day-trippers the rest of the year. What began as one of the Millennium Park trucks now has people turning onto First Street on purpose, trailer and cannabis shop and all.