Ryan Bodine has worked in restaurants since before he could drive. Now 47, he’s taken his well-honed skills on the road.
He built his career in kitchens and management at chain restaurants as well as locally owned favorites like Sportsman’s Grille & Billiards, the now-closed Rí Rá Irish Pub, and Honey Moon Coffee Co. His own venture, a food truck called Bodine’s Newsstand, is making waves with its flaky, fried fish and hand-cut “chips,” pub burgers, and po’boy sandwiches. The truck’s launch on Halloween 2023 signaled what was to come: “We had a line down the block,” Bodine recalls.
The name is a nod to a historic, now-closed sandwich shop in Bodine’s native Sullivan, Indiana. “We’d been going to the Newsstand since I was a baby,” he says. “That was the introduction. And I worked there all through high school.” His Irish-influenced cuisine is a love letter to his ancestral homeland and “how good the food was at the ‘chippers’” during his travels to the Emerald Isle, he says.
Aside from a brief — and hated, he says — stint in retail, Bodine has stayed in the culinary scene for years. Bodine’s Newsstand stops regularly at Mo’s House in the Haynie’s Corner Arts District because owner Moriah Hobgood once worked with Bodine at Rí Rá. Introductions to the folks running Industry Bar and Barker Brewhouse led to regular gigs there, too.
He’s twice collaborated with Patsy Hartigan’s Irish Pub, owned by another former Rí Rá coworker, Joshua Petrowski. Bodine first supplied fish and chips in July 2024 when the team at Patsy’s ran low on supplies — and needed some rest — at the end of its busy grand opening weekend, and again the following St. Patrick’s Day. Before that, Bodine worked for Honey Moon owners Zac and Jessica Parsons, helping shape logistics and processes for nearly a year before deciding, with the Parsons’ blessing, to focus on his food truck.
“Ryan doesn’t seem to know the definition of the word ‘impossible’ — in the best ways,” Zac Parsons says. “He was always willing to roll up his sleeves and try anything that might make a process, a customer experience, or a menu item better. Honestly, I think just getting some insight into our mom-and-pop organization might have given him that confidence to make the biggest vocational jump of all: to go from employee to entrepreneur.”
Bodine’s Newsstand’s blue truck is a repurposed circus trailer that used to peddle popcorn, pretzels, and cotton candy. His and wife Deena’s children — Brynn, 19, Liam, 16, Collin, 12, and Rowan, 9 — are heavily involved. “I could not have done this without my wife,” Bodine says. “Her blossoming career enabled me to step back from the grind of the corporate restaurant world and focus on following my passion rather than chasing a paycheck.”
Meanwhile, Bodine’s business keeps flourishing. In winter 2025, Arcademie owner Carl Arnheiter tapped Bodine to craft a bistro-inspired menu of a French dip Philly, loaded frites, frites poutine, and more. In August, the Newsstand signed a lease for a Downtown storefront serving mostly the same menu at Main Street Food & Beverage. “It’s difficult with the trailer to do DoorDash and deliveries,” Bodine says. “This is kind of our expansion and our winter location. We are very excited to bring this to life.”
