Eggroll Queen food truck targeted by thief

SOUTH ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - A popular Twin Cities area food truck took a huge loss because of a thief at a farmers market in South St. Paul Wednesday night.

Egg roll magic starts in the bubbling oil at Eggroll Queen.

"I try to catch her every time she’s in town," said Jessica Fisher after visiting the food truck in Cottage Grove. "I just really love her food."

Mai Vang says her recipe for success is simple. "People like our egg rolls," she said. "That’s pretty much it."

Vang runs four trucks now, usually staffed by family members, but they’re a little thin once her kids go back to school and she says someone else noticed. A thief reached into a food truck and stole a big bag of cash and other items at the South St. Paul Farmers Market Wednesday night.

Because they’d been working up to 19 hours a day, they hadn’t been to the bank in more than two weeks, so the bag had about $20,000 in it, which is very unusual for a food truck.

"It’s not so much that we lost so much money, but it’s because I felt like these people have been watching us for some time," Vang said.

Police say the thief ran away from the farmer’s market and possibly jumped into a vehicle, but after that, they don’t know what happened and they don’t have any suspects.

Vang launched Eggroll Queen eight years ago based on popular demand for the food she made for a fundraiser to help the family of a 4-year-old girl who died in a fire. Now that the tables have turned and she could use the help, some people are dropping off donations, but she’s not totally ready to accept.

"We don’t want to ask people to do a fundraiser for us because they’ve been helping us for the last eight years," Vang said.

She says the incident has drained her emotionally. She blames herself for not running to the bank and she feels violated after two problem-free years at that farmer’s market.

"So yeah, it hurts a lot," she said, laughing so she wouldn't cry.

But Vang says she still has her trucks, so the only help she’s accepting for now is extra orders for egg rolls and fried rice.