Get your fire engine pizzas, sushi burritos, and road kill geese here.
The first food trucks were known as chuckwagons and originated in Texas in the 1800s to serve cowhands out on the trails. A chuckwagon would be stocked with medical supplies as well as food, water, coffee, and utensils. The lunch wagon is a little more modern and credited to an American entrepreneur named Walter Scott, who cut windows into his covered truck and parked it outside a newspaper office in Rhode Island to sell sandwiches, pies, and coffee to journalists. Later on, Thomas H. Buckley started manufacturing purpose-built trucks that included stoves, sinks, and refrigerators to serve office areas, construction sites, and factories.
The modern resurgence of food trucks was born in nostalgia and fueled by street food becoming fashionable along with technological advances. As you can imagine, just about every foodie niche has been covered now and food truck owners can get creative, and that leads to some weird and wonderful places to stop for some food.
The Bananarchy truck lives in Austin, Texas but it's a long way removed from the chuckwagons that served the cowhands back in the 1800s. The owners started out with a banana stand and, as we know, there's always money in the banana stand. The business evolved into a truck and now does a brisk trade selling frozen banana vegan deserts to the hipsters of Austin.
Everybody loves tacos, and anyone who says they don't is lying. It seems a strange food to serve at a ski resort though, but this converted snowcat roams the Steamboat Resort in Colorado selling tacos to skiers hitting 4 to 5 locations a day.
If you find yourself in Seattle, it'll be hard to miss this gargantuan pig truck on the street. While the owners specialize in pork products, they're quick to point out its not a barbecue truck and they specialize in sauces to match the meats and people they are serving. Maximus refers to strong flavors and minimus to sauces that are sweeter and lighter. Maximus/Minimus was rated as one of "America's top 15 street food vendors" by relish.com and the magnificent truck can often be found at 6th Avenue and Pike Street in downtown Seattle or at farmers markets and events.
If there's one thing better than cupcakes, it cupcakes you don't have to go far for. Sweet Jenni's Cupcake Truck can be found moving around the Hamptons in New York styled like a lump of sprinkled frosting in a pink wrapper. Jenni's got a fully baked business and selling to the upper crust in the Hamptons for a profit must be the icing on the cake.
If you're going to paint a big pun on the side of a food truck, the trick is to remember it has to be more memorable than good. The Grillenium Falcon serves up grilled cheese sandwiches and is owned by Hammontree's Grilled Cheese in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The company specializes in cheesy movie puns with names like "The Scarlet Cheddar" and "Jack To The Future."
Irvine, California, is home to perhaps the coolest food truck in the world. It's a retired fire truck that serves up stone-baked pizza. That's cool in itself, but it also has a working water cannon, a rooftop kitchen, a light show, a jump seat photo booth, and the pizzas come down a slide when they are ready.
Philly cheese steak sandwiches are a right of passage in Philadelphia. Served up out of a truck painted to look like a brick wall and its sign written in graffiti is about as real of an experience as it gets. Except, this is one of the longest-serving food trucks in Los Angeles.
Strap in for this one. You could only find it in Los Angeles, and Jogasaki serves up a Sushi Burrito to anyone weird enough to think that sounds good. Don't be put off though, the burritos are wrapped in soy paper then filled with the ingredients you'd normally find in California sushi roll and have a reputation for being excellent.
Fire Truck Crepes showed up in Denver, Colorado, in 2014 using a repurposed fire truck to sell sweet and savory crepes. A team of former firefighters teamed up to hire a chef, and the business has been successful enough to justify a move to Texas.
While it looks like a truck they send into hostage situations to meet the food demands of a terrorist, SWAT stands for Sandwiches With A Twist here. Most likely for reasons of legality, anyway. Reviews tell us that the SWAT Food Truck's gourmet burgers and grilled chicken wraps are some of the best around, let alone in Ohio where you'll find it.
Since 2012, this custom built truck built using a shipping container has been serving up Neapolitan pizza in San Fransisco. Its success has led to opening a brick and mortar store, but the truck is still plying its trade on the mean streets.
Time to get really weird and visit Amsterdam for the Kitchen Of The Unwanted Animal for something you would expect to find out in American banjo country. They serve... Roadkill. It's not as gross as it sounds though. Hunting laws in Holland outlawed hunting geese in the 1970s, and since then the population has gotten out of control and to the point they're a safety issue for airports, and dead geese were being thrown away all the time after being hit by cars. Founders Rob Hagenouw and Nicolle Schatborn saw this, and cooked a mean goose stew that they turned into a business.
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