Prince Harry turns up at Polish burger truck… and stuns staff with his order (but only after someone told them who he was!)

Prince Harry stopped off in a Polish village on the border with Ukraine for a portion of chips, leaving the food truck staff stunned – once they realised who he was.

The Duke of Sussex made a quick pitstop at a car park late on September 11 in his last hours before crossing into Ukraine to support the war wounded.

The prince made a surprise trip to Kyiv on Friday by invitation from Superhumans, a charity providing the injured with prosthetic limbs and rehabilitation.

Ela Krupa, who runs the ‘FOOD TRACK’ burger van near the border, said staff did not even recognise the prince – and shared her own disbelief.

Ela’s cousin, Damian Drozdów, said the waitress was busy cleaning, so even she did not immediately notice who was standing at the table.

Nobody took selfies or asked for autographs, they said.

‘He was the most famous customer we… we didn’t know we had,’ the owners told Polish outlet Fakt. 

Arriving just before closing, a colleague ordered, in English, a portion of chips for the prince without sauce, and a small beer for someone on the team, the outlet reports. 

Ela said an employee was on shift to greet the Duke, ‘not me’, and that she only found out about it when she later saw the story in the papers.

‘My friend was shocked. “What do you mean, a prince?! He only ordered fries?”,’ she said. 

‘If the prince ever visits us again, we’ll treat him to a burger or a casserole. We believe he’ll come back because our customers keep coming back.’ 

They made a brief pitstop before crossing the border into Ukraine

Prince Harry pictured at a food truck near the Ukrainian border, in Poland, on September 11

A colleague was said to have ordered a portion of chips for the prince

Prince Harry was said to have waited off to the side quietly for the order before the crew got into their cars and headed for Kyiv.

The Duke of Sussex arrived in Kyiv on an overnight sleeper train a day later in his first visit to the capital.

There, he took part in a panel discussion at Kyiv’s National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War and spoke to fellow war veterans leaving military service, while promoting the work of his Invictus Games Foundation (IGF).

‘You will feel lost at times, like you lack purpose,’ he said, telling returning troops not to ‘stay silent’.

‘Open up to your friends and family, because in doing so you give them permission to do the same,’ he said.

In Ukraine, the prince received a glowing reception. Olga Rudnieva, founder and CEO of the Superhumans trauma centre in Lviv, which has worked with Invictus, told the Guardian: ‘Ordinary people know who he is. We honestly didn’t know he had become such a celebrity.

‘I think Prince Harry coming here is a symbol of victory and power. People look at him and his military experience and they see he is not afraid to come to Ukraine.

‘It is so important that he came.’

The prince told the outlet that his work for Invictus ‘saved me’ after a 10 year career in the British Army.

‘Seeing people with prosthetics and life-changing injuries is going to be the norm in Ukraine for the coming decades,’ he said.

‘Nobody should feel embarrassed or ashamed about their disabilities. It’s about flipping from sympathy to admiration and respect.’