WPST Area's Favorite Food Truck: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the WPST Area's Favorite Food Truck vote, and who runs it?

WPST 94.5 is a commercial FM station licensed to Trenton, New Jersey, and it presents itself to listeners under the 94.5 PST branding. Each fall the station asks its audience to crown the area's favorite food truck, drawing candidates from Mercer, Bucks, Burlington and Philadelphia counties. The final round is published directly on wpst.com at /vote-in-the-final-round-for-the-areas-favorite-food-truck/, which means a supporter casts ballots inside the broadcaster's own web property instead of on a third-party polling service.

A couple of details set the tone. The station treats the whole exercise lightheartedly, stating plainly, "We don't have a prize, and it's all meant in fun." And the format is a genuine two-step process rather than a wide-open ballot: supporters put names forward, and the strongest candidates advance to a decided final.

The essentials at a glance

In short: a Trenton-licensed radio station stages a food truck popularity vote on its own website every fall, with the host's personality baked into how it is presented.

When does the WPST food truck vote run, and which editions have happened?

The voting phase sits inside October, with both the start and the finish falling in that month on the station's schedule. The ballot's own text promises the reveal: the area's favorite will be named on Friday, October 2. Alongside that promise, WPST supplies no opening day, no closing day and no nomination deadline, so anyone scheduling around this food truck poll needs to watch wpst.com as the month approaches.

Edition history is straightforward. The program has run every year from 2020 through 2025, six straight falls without a gap, which makes the truck poll a recurring feature of the station's seasonal programming rather than a single experiment. A 2026 edition has not been announced on the ballot page; the station's fall posts will signal it when the time comes.

Cycle outline

Every cycle's precise dates, plus any ceiling on repeat participation or eligibility wording, sit outside what the ballot discloses; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

How does a supporter vote in the WPST final round?

Reaching the ballot means loading an ordinary article page at wpst.com/vote-in-the-final-round-for-the-areas-favorite-food-truck/; the poll runs inside the station's own publishing setup, so no third-party voting application sits in the path between a listener and a counted choice. The page carries the headline Vote In the Final Round For The Area's Favorite Food Truck, together with the prompt "Nominate your favorite here."

Stage one, the nomination call

The station described how an earlier cycle unfolded in a wrap-up post afterwards: "So, first, I asked for your nominations, and we got a TON of them, thank you so much. Then, I took the 10 with the most nominations and asked you to vote." That shape, a broad call for names followed by a shortlist, is the format the final-round page assumes visitors already understand.

Stage two, the final ballot

Once the shortlist is set, supporters pick a favorite among the finalists and the station announces the outcome. Results earn their own post too; the wrap-up address for a prior cycle reads wpst.com/you-voted-twisted-steaks-is-the-areas-favorite-food-truck/, showing how each edition gets closed out publicly.

Because both prompts share the same article page, a supporter arriving mid-cycle should read from the top before acting, since the live stage, nomination or final, is whichever the station has switched on that day.

How does the WPST truck vote sit beside New Jersey's other choice awards?

Half a dozen other New Jersey choice-based ballots operate in the same general space, and each contrasts with the station's food truck poll in useful ways. Asbury Park Press Readers' Choice and Bergen & Morris Top Dentists carry newspaper-style breadth across many fields. Rounding out the neighbourhood are three community surveys, Best of Bergen Community's Choice Awards, the Best of Jersey Shore Contest and Best of New Jersey, plus one food-only county survey, the Jersey Bites Monmouth County Readers' Choice. Every one of them covers wider ground than a single truck category pushed by a radio host.

For a sense of how far a multi-category survey can stretch, see Best of New Jersey, which canvasses the whole state rather than a single niche.

The distinctive feature of the station's version is voice: a host asks for nominations, talks about the pile of responses, announces the outcome and treats the entire thing as a bit of seasonal fun, where the larger surveys run with far less commentary.

How can a truck's supporters strengthen its standing in the WPST poll?

A truck hoping to do well faces a two-part job. The nomination stage is the gate: the ballot's title, Vote In the Final Round, tells arrivals that the shortlist already exists, so a business that misses the nomination call waits a full year for another chance. Mobilizing regular customers early, while the nomination prompt is live, matters more than anything managed during the final stretch.

During the final itself, steady backing across the whole voting window beats a single-day burst, since the station settles the result on a fixed October date. WPST prints no guidance about outside help on the ballot, so anyone weighing a paid option should measure it against the station's own terms first. Tactics suited to a local, personality-driven poll of this kind are collected in the votes guide.