For more than three decades, Bud True, his wife Nancy and their chip truck were summertime fixtures in front of what we now know as the old Halifax library. Their french fries were so popular it wasn’t uncommon to see a dozen people lined up on the sidewalk while a virtually identical truck next door served just an occasional customer.
Leonard (Bud) True died on Saturday at the age of 77 of pneumonia and complications arising from dementia, according to his nephew, Gary Burke.
The Trues ran the Bud the Spud truck from 1977 until they retired in 2009.
“They had done a bunch of various jobs,” Burke said of his aunt and uncle. “I was a kid back then but I know they were kind of touring around, living out of a van for a while, and did a bunch of free-wheeling, kind of hippie-ish things. Then they settled on running a chip truck, first in P.E.I. and then they moved to Halifax a couple of years after that.”
True got the moniker Bud as a boy, long before he named his truck after a Stompin’ Tom Connors song. He learned how to julienne and fry potatoes mostly by practising.
"I’ve been to a lot of places, eaten a lot of great food, and Bud’s fries were some of the best fries I’ve ever had."
“In the '70s they went and visited some places to learn the craft of frying. It was putting in month after month in that truck that made it as good as it was,” Burke said. “The quality of the fries was excellent. I’m a big foodie, I’ve been to a lot of places, eaten a lot of great food, and Bud’s fries were some of the best fries I’ve ever had, including in Belgium. They were epic. He really focused on the quality of his product and that’s what made Bud the Spud one of the best.”
The Trues were on Spring Garden Road from Victoria Day through to Labour Day and sometimes later into the fall. It was common to hear Bud observe that it was a job hard on the back and knees.
Where are the food trucks in and around Halifax?
“In the winters they would travel, they’d take cheap trips to the Caribbean and stuff. They did great,” said Burke, who remembers that True was approached by someone who wanted him to be a partner in a chain of Bud the Spud restaurants. “He didn’t want to do that, he wanted to stay in the truck. He was always a very humble man and he didn’t have the ambition to become a business magnate.”
The Trues lived in Timberlea and Bud’s health started to decline about 18 months ago. Burke said he moved back home to Halifax a year ago, partly to spend time with his relatives, who didn’t have any children.
“I kind of feel like I lost him about nine months ago, not this week. He never wanted a funeral or a memorial service or anything like that, they’re very private individuals.”
