Not your father's taco trucks

Variety of mobile gourmet food trucks sprout up in Houston

A new generation of taco trucks no longer caters to hungry workers at construction sites.
Instead, these food-laden vehicles bring gourmet food to customers as their owners roll out this mobile concept rather than set up a storefront and wait for clients to come to them.
These aren’t your father’s taco trucks.
Fusion Taco, Oh My! Pocket Pies and Frosted Betty Mobile Bake Shop have all recently started to rev their engines around the Houston area, catering to customers who crave gourmet food served quickly at reasonable prices.
Julia Sharaby, chef and owner of Houston-based Fusion Taco, who has been in the restaurant business for 15 years, says the mobile food model provides her with lower overhead and expenses. She spent about $85,000 on her truck, far less than what she spent to get her previous restaurant concept off the ground.
“With the down economy I knew I needed to focus on high volume sales, rather than traditional restaurant sales,” she says. “I didn’t want to do anything that anyone else was already doing. People aren’t going to stop eating out but they are going to start spending less for their food.”
Sharaby says the gourmet mobile food trend has already taken over New York and California, although Houston is still lagging in accepting the edgy concept.
Her Asian fusion taco truck, which made its debut May 8 on Washington Avenue, serves up dishes such as a short rib taco with Tzatziki sauce on grilled Paratha and a chicken satay taco with Asian coleslaw and spicy peanut sauce. Prices range from $3 to $7 for a variety of Asian fusion menu items.
From the full stainless steel commercial kitchen to the chrome wheels and high gloss black finish complete with flames, Sharaby’s truck will be hard to miss.
Sharaby is gambling that the mobile taco concept will appeal to hungry late-night club-goers in the Midtown, Downtown and Washington Avenue areas, or may appeal to others as a catering option for corporate events.
She plans to use Twitter, the popular social media site, to let people know the latest whereabouts of the truck when they connect to her page at @fusiontaco. And unlike the kind of bells or carnival music used by ice cream trucks that patrol suburban neighborhoods on Saturday mornings, the Fusion Taco truck plays electronic “chill out” music to attract its hip clientele.
“We’ll be out there,” says Sharaby. “And, we’ll come find you. You won’t even have to look for us.”
While she is starting out with one truck, she hopes to eventually expand to three vehicles, each offering a different cuisine. But she isn’t abandoning the storefront eatery approach, and would also like to open a small free-standing restaurant that allows customers to dine in or grab gourmet food on the go.
“It’s a whole new way of dining,” says Sharaby. “I’m hoping to teach Houstonians that you don’t have to go sit in a restaurant to get quality, gourmet food. Houston is a huge melting pot that is home to many cultures and I think they’re ready for this.”
Still, Sharaby, who operated the Cafe de Sol restaurant in the Katy area for four years before going mobile, is not giving up on the traditional restaurant brick-and-mortar location, with plans to open a new restaurant inside the 610 Loop in September called Julia’s at the Brownstone.
More than a fad?
While Fusion Taco is focused on trendy fusion food, Oh My! Pocket Pies offers comfort food bundled up in flaky dough designed to emulate home-cooked meals from another era.
For $3, diners choose from pocket pies ranging from the traditional Chicken Pot Pie to the Spicy Chicken Chile Relleno or Veggie Pot Pie — or the Sloppy Jo, named after the ubiquitous family-style meal. The truck also offers burgers for $6 and desserts for $2.

more--

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2010/05/17/story2.html?b=1274068800^3349221

Brand new look, same intestinal parasites.