Smash & Dash Grill, a food truck in Columbia, MO
Serving amazing food with a heavy dose of humor
Being a local small business means that we support our local small businesses. We get beef from the student-run meat market and butcherblock The Mizzou Meat Market, we get our veggies from local growers at the Columbia Farmer's Market, and other small businesses provide our shirts, business cards, etc. Supporting our local community is an important aspect of how we operate at Smash & Dash Grill.
Our Origin Story
We got our start back in 2024 in a small town in East Texas that is where the hamburger was born. According to legend, Uncle Fletch Davis served ground beef patties on bread at his cafe in Athens in the 1880s and then brought his culinary delight to the St. Louis World Fair in 1904.
When we were deciding on what to serve in our food truck, we wanted to make sure that no matter what the final product was, that we were able to use local suppliers for the bulk of our ingredients.
Our first burgers were made with beef supplied by Happy Cattle Beef Company, a local rancher raising 100% grass-fed beef, specifically bred to thrive in the East Texas environment. We fell in love with the texture and flavor of 100% grass-fed beef and we developed our seasoning around those traits.
The Move
After getting started in Texas, we decided that we needed to expand our horizons a little bit and we put the farm and house on the market and started looking at other areas of the country to move to. After several weeks of deliberation with different areas of the country, we settled on Missouri as an affordable place to move to, and we decided on Columbia specifically because of how friendly Columbia is to food trucks along with the fact that Columbia is a college town with a large, hungry population of students.
Moving to Columbia was an awesome adventure that involved multiple trips back to Texas and bringing our food trailer over 800 miles.
Starting Life in Columbia
After getting settled, we started looking for suppliers, talking to the health department about upgrades needed for the trailer, wrap designs, etc. We found the Mizzou Meat Market and learned that the beef they serve is locally raised and 100% grass-fed, we tried several samples of the ground beef and loved the texture and flavor. We found several growers at the Farmer's Market and get most of our seasonal veggies locally from various growers.
We were originally "Macon Ranch" because we lived on a farm and we grew some of our own ingredients. Up here in Columbia though, we no longer had the farm and while we source locally grown produce, we aren't growing it ourselves. Plus, we wanted to really lean into college town culture. So we rebranded to Smash & Dash Grill, and one of my sons asked us "Do you know what a smash and dash is?" and that is how we came up with some of our burger names and menu style. A heavy dose of humor, a little naughty, but always high quality and served with a smile.
We went to Pro-Dezigns in Columbia to get our trailer wrap designed and installed. They did an amazing job and we love the result. Our trailer is beautiful.
We called up General Printing and asked them to help us with a stamp (for our paper bags) and our business cards. They are amazing to work with and we can't recommend them enough.
After getting the wrap and business cards/stamp, we needed to get some tee shirts. Our shirts had to be soft, high quality, and we wanted shirts to give away as well as shirts to wear as our uniforms. One to One Graphics was the obvious choice to get our shirts made at. Once again, a local company that did an amazing job. I can tell you that our shirts get abused, and the prints are still in great shape even after being washed over 100 times.
Rebuilding the Trailer
Back in East Texas, health codes are slightly different, and the environment is vastly different so our trailer was set up differently. Our grill was "on the porch" to reduce heat inside, and our prep table was smaller as well as we didn't have a freezer yet. We also didn't have a fryer inside the trailer because we only made our scratch-made chips to go with our burgers.
Being in Columbia, the weather is much more reasonable so we moved the grill inside, upgraded our prep table, added a fryer and freezer, and then needed to add a vent hood and fire suppression system. Other than the fire suppression system, we did all of the work inside the trailer on our own. John, Leslie, Logan, and Jackson all had a hand in getting equipment installed and laid out the way we wanted. Even MJ "helped", well as much as a 3 year-old can help.
Launching our Food Trailer
After all of the work was done, we finally got our paperwork, inspection, administrative work, etc. done and in May of 2026, we officially opened our re-branded food trailer in Columbia. It has been a whirlwind ever since.
Now we are regularly at Cooper's Landing, in Downtown Columbia on Walnut & Locust Streets, and at Macadoodle's. We've also expanded our service area to include Callaway County setting up at Crane's Country Store and Marlene's Ice Cream Shop. While we serve in Columbia and Callaway Counties mostly, we are available to cater just about anywhere in MO.
If you want to see more of what we do, follow us on Facebook to get more schedule updates, see some of the funny stuff we post, and get special offers!