Cookout at Alliance Bank

On Friday Alliance Bank held a customer appreciation cook out. Alliance has been holding similar cookout at its other branches (Oxford, Otterbein, Monon, Monticello, Francesville), with one left to go (Winamac).

 Alliance Bank began as Peoples State Bank of Francesville. It is rather interesting that the local Rensselaer banks from forty years ago (Farmers and Merchants and State Bank of Rensselaer, as well as a savings and loan) all were bought out by larger banks, which in turn were bought out by larger banks, etc. However, the little banks in some of the smaller communities, such as Francesville, Kentland, DeMotte, and Wolcott, were not bought out, perhaps because they were in smaller towns, and those that survived the bursting of the farm land bubble about twenty years ago have expanded, some of them into Rensselaer. So little towns around have bank main offices but Rensselaer does not.

The food for the cookout was being served from a food trailer, the Rensselaer Rotary Club's Porkburger Express. I had seen this trailer at the Taste of Rensselaer and at the County Fair, but for some reason seeing it here aroused my curiosity. It is a new acquisition of the Rotary, bought early this year and then turned into a food trailer, with the lettering by Reinforcements Design. I asked what prompted this purchase and was told that the members of the Rotary are getting older and got tired of setting up their old tent and booth.

Update: The porkburgers are not grilled inside of the trailer, but on a grill that is outside. The trailer is only a partial food truck.