The owners of Don’s Lunch Van have sold the nearly 40-year-old business to a former customer who plans to reopen the food truck in Westbrook.

Bill and Nancy Bombard sold the iconic Westbrook burger joint on wheels Tuesday night, Nancy Bombard said.

The new owner, Craig Bernier, declined to comment Wednesday, saying the deal was still being finalized.

Jim Richards, the son of the original owners, had bought the business from the Bombards in 2012 using owner financing. When the state shut it down last month for nonpayment of sales taxes, the Bombards reacquired the food truck.

“We’re very excited,” Nancy Bombard said about the sale.

She said Bernier is a Westbrook resident, a former customer and “a super-nice guy.” He’s planning to rehab the truck and park it in a lot in Westbrook, she said.

Original owners Don and Yvonne Richards started the business in 1976 and operated the food truck out of the parking lot of The Muffler Shop on Main Street. The Bombards bought the business in 2001 and moved it to the other end of downtown Westbrook. The property owner no longer wants the business on his lot and the beige GMC van was moved into storage Sunday, Nancy Bombard said.

She said the business, which they listed for sale Friday on Craigslist for $25,000, had been bringing in about $250,000 in revenue annually. She said she and her husband negotiated a price with Bernier for less than the amount listed, but wouldn’t disclose what it was.


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