When Jill Sheerer returned from Alabama to her native Lower Burrell, she brought along a little something to share with the community.
Her food truck, Jilly’s Cafe, made the journey north not long after Sheerer had replanted roots in the Alle-Kiski Valley.
She’ll be opening the mobile eatery April 19 at Burrell Plaza on Leechburg Road in Lower Burrell, where she returned after living in the South for eight years.
Though the truck will not have regular hours, Sheerer, 57, plans to operate it at the Lower Burrell Farmers Market on Leechburg Road on Saturdays from May to October and at other neighborhood events.
She said she also hopes to set up at least once a month in parking lots across the city.
“I really want to keep it in the A-K Valley,” she said.
Her menu consists of fresh deli sandwiches, wraps, salads and, for brunch-time events, breakfast sandwiches. At Jilly’s Cafe, nothing is fried, Sheerer said.
For events with children, the menu will also include hot dogs and nachos.
“All of the sandwiches are combos, and you get a bag of chips, a drink and whatever daily side salad I make,” Sheerer said. “I make antipasto salad, I make a pickle pasta … coleslaw, potato salad, all freshly made.”
Sheerer has worked in the tire business for 15 years, taking after her dad, who owned Sweeney Industrial Tire in Pittsburgh. She currently works as a sales representative for a local wholesale tire distributor.
“I was crawling through tires by the time I was 5 years old,” Sheerer said.
She and her husband, John, moved to the South in 2018 to accommodate his job in the steel industry. The couple eventually settled in Robertsdale, Ala.
“I loved the town because it was literally like you took Lower Burrell and put it in the South — and we were way south (in) Alabama,” Sheerer said. “Everybody down there were still friends with everybody they went to elementary school with and middle school and high school, and that’s how (Lower Burrell) is.”
At the time, she worked as a district manager for family chain store Sweat Tire, whose proprietors also owned an old disused restaurant she took over and reopened as Jilly’s Cafe.
“We opened this place with literally no money, no experience, no nothing,” she said.
A few months later, she bought the food truck because it was common for restaurants in the community to have them, she said.
When Sheerer’s father died unexpectedly, the couple decided to move back to Lower Burrell early last year to help with her aging mother and to be closer to their children and grandchildren.
They sold the restaurant and the food truck but planned to get a new truck at some point.
“I love the food truck so much,” Sheerer said. “It is so much fun to work. … I just have a freaking blast on there. I love seeing a line. I love talking to every single person that comes up. It is just so much fun. So I was hellbent when we got back here — I told my husband, ‘We have to find one.’”
Two weeks after passing on a new truck she said was perfect, fate stepped in. Sheerer was able to get her original food truck back after the person she had sold it to in Alabama stopped making contractual payments on it.
“He agreed to give us the food truck back, but we had to walk away from everything else,” she said. “So we drove to Alabama last November, and we picked it up and brought it back home.
“And then we drove through a blizzard, and then a tornado, and then hail and rain, and then another blizzard, and then more wind. It was very nerve racking, but I sang and screamed out the window the whole way home.”
John Sheerer said the business venture has been a way for the couple to “spread some joy” in their spare time — and make a couple of extra bucks.
“Jill lights up when she’s on the truck,” he said.
Giving back to the community is part of the business model, the couple said.
In Alabama, Sheerer said, she often donated partial profits from events to community groups. In Lower Burrell, she plans to do the same.
The desire to help people, she said, comes from her father.
“Whoever needs help raising money, we would love to be involved and help them do so,” she said.
Her opening-day event will be a “dine and donate” benefit with a basket raffle and 10% of funds being donated to the Burrell middle and high school softball teams.
Lower Burrell Mayor Chris Fabry said it’s refreshing to see someone who had left return and invest in the town.
“She really wants to ingrain herself in the community,” Fabry said. “That’s the type of business people we want in our city.”
You can catch the food truck at these upcoming events:
• Burrell Community Connections at Charles A. Huston Middle School on May 6.
• Music in the Park at Burrell Lake Park on the second Fridays of June, July and August.