New food trucks hit Boston streets for the spring

New food trucks are popping up just in time for the start of spring in Boston. The schedule for the upcoming season beings April 2 with eight new trucks hitting the streets. Ranging from tacos to juice, first-time truck owners have cited several reasons for making their kitchens mobile.

Mother Juice, Taco Party Truck, Sweet Tomatoes Pizza and Fugu Truck are all gearing up to peddle their treats on the street.

Mother Juice

Mother Juice, the first all-vegan juice truck, is trying to reflect

the local produce culture of Boston through its juice creations, said co-owner Ellen Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald and her partner, Claire Schlemme, plan to run a fruit and vegetable juicing truck. Fitzgerald said the idea all started during a walk at lunch.

“Our original idea was to just set up at farmers markets and have a little cart where people could come up with the produce that they have bought and we juice it on the spot for them,” Fitzgerald said. “We needed a kitchen, and the best way to do that was a food truck.”

They continue to incorporate the farmer’s market fresh feel of juice by highlighting local ingredients such as kale, peaches and watermelon.

“Our menu changes to reflect the season,” Fitzgerald said. “We took that aspect of what we liked about fresh juice … and it enabled us to engage with local farmers.. It has forced us to be creative and think in certain instances, so it makes our menu a bit different from some of the other juice places out there.”

Schlemme said she and Fitzgerald are excited to be a part of the growing Boston food truck scene.

“It’s a great community to start a juice truck,” Schlemme said. “Boston is a very health-conscious city and a lot of people are into local foods and supporting local farms.”

Taco Party

Keith Schubert said he started Taco Party Truck out of the desire to stay home.  After 12 years of working in the music industry, the 35-year-old said he wanted to be able to spend more time with his family as well as find a decent taco in Boston.

“There was a cooking show on TV, and there was a guy with a food truck and it all — in this flash — came to me,” Schubert said. “I was like ‘Ahh that’s what I’m going to do.’  So I just kind of dove into it, this overwhelming desire to stay home.”

Schubert said he wants his truck to be a positive entity for his life as well as for the environment.  He plans on taking the recycling, composting, gardening and vegetarianism he participates in at home and applying the same customs to his truck.  He plans to keep the truck environmentally friendly by using biodegradable food containers and utensils.

“In the future I’d like to look into running the truck on biodiesel or vegetable oil, but right now at the start of the business there are so many other things going on, that’s just going to have to wait,” Schubert said. ”It’s going to be on the back burner, it’s easier to go with the standard crude right off the bat.”

The truck is completely vegetarian, something Schubert said may confuse some customers initially.

“I’ve tried to get out there ahead of it and let people know what [vegetarianism] is all about, and why I’m vegetarian,” Schubert said. “But I’m sure there will be people who come up to the truck thinking, ‘Oh, tacos great,’ and they’ll look at the menu and be like ‘what the hell is this?’”

Schubert said he is not looking to make it rich off of his truck, but instead create a sustainable job and have fun.

“I’m not so much concerned with if it’s going to be a good investment,” Schubert said. “I’m more concerned with if it’s going to make me happy. Is my quality of life going to be better by working in the city I love every day and being mostly outdoors?”

Sweet Tomatoes

Elysha Bemis, along with Hedy Jarras and Justin Shimamura, of Sweet Tomatoes Pizza decided to start a food truck to expand the restaurant’s customer base. Sweet Tomatoes Pizza has four restaurant locations and has been operating for about 15 years. Adapting from a restaurant to a food truck has given the company a bit of a leg-up.

“We had the knowledge of our product behind us that helped us ease into things a little bit,” Bemis said. “We had the benefit of being able to train employees at our stores, to prep food at our stores and just the general knowledge of how to run a business. So it wasn’t our first endeavor, which made things a bit smoother of a transition.”

As the only operating pizza truck in Boston, Bemis said Sweet Tomatoes Pizza will fit in with other trucks by providing a quality product.

“Pizza is such great street food and ours is unique in that it’s a thin-crust, Neapolitan style so it’s fresh — a really chunky, fresh sauce,” Bemis said. “We tried to make sure we are using unique ingredients as well as being able to serve people who just like straight up pepperoni pizza.”

The truck will feature a downsized menu from the restaurant’s with three fixed pizzas and three seasonal pizzas along with salads. For catering, the menu is customizable.

Fugu Truck

Bing Liu, the owner of Fugu Truck is trying to bring the street food of Asia to Boston. The idea has been brewing for half a year, and Liu said he hopes it prepares him for a bigger restaurant.

“The original idea was to bring something we had growing up as kids. Me and my teammates, we both grew up in Asia [and] we wanted to bring that food experience to the streets of Boston,” Liu said. “Which is something that you cannot find that easily. When I tried to find it I came up short.”

He said that fresh, local ingredients would be a focus of Fugu Truck.

“I have always wanted to use local and fresh ingredients to support the local community of producers and I think using that produce on a food truck gives introduction to a greater audience,” Liu said. “[Customers] can make the connection and bridge the relationship between the food truck who is willing to reach out to the local community and the local producers.”

Fugu Truck is named after a dish of puffer fish. To serve it, the fish must be imported, but the truck is not named such because fugu will be on the menu.

“One day we will [serve fugu] if it’s a high demand,” Liu said. “The name really is more about the discipline and dedication required to prepare that dish. And we really want to take a nod to that dedication and apply that same discipline to our operation.”

Liu said he hopes to see Fugu Truck become a well-established brand in Boston and compete with cities like New York and Los Angeles in the food truck circuit.

“Support local food and really support trucks that have the vision of working closely with local businesses,” Liu said.  “Food trucks are creating a lot of jobs and it is an upcoming industry. Let’s make it a part of a street culture.”

Challenges in bringing a new truck to the streets

New trucks face many challenges like spacial issues, spreading the word, communicating with their customers, maintaining a serious business on wheels and even things as simple as running out of gas.

Fitzgerald and Schlemme, who have run out of gas while driving around, said a kitchen takes on a whole other host of problems when it’s put on wheels.

“Just little things, like here’s our kitchen problem, but then you also have to find someone who knows how to outfit that on a truck,” Fitzgerald said.  “It’s been a little bit of a challenge that way, but that’s what makes it exciting.”

Luckily, the new owners said they found the Boston Food Truck community welcoming and helpful.

“I was actually taken aback by it,” Bemis said. “You would expect every one to be competitive with each other, since it is such small niche and there isn’t a huge amount of trucks and they have been so helpful and encouraging, which is really a breath of fresh air.”

The BU Community Reacts

Boston University students are excited for new food trucks to be in Boston.  For College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Kaitlin Fusco, a pizza truck is a great addition to the food truck community.

“[The best thing about food trucks is] convenience. It is easy for me to grab a meal at a food truck instead of sitting down at a restaurant or dining hall,” Fusco said.

CAS senior Jessica Malloy said she enjoys Clover Food Truck, a vegetarian food truck, and that she looks forward to trying out Taco Party Truck and Fugu Truck.

“A lot of the places to eat around here are affiliated with BU and they are big chains and tend to have generic food,” Malloy said. “So I like having some more variety and it’s more local Boston area.”

Malloy said she would be more likely to stop at a truck that she knows uses local produce.

Helen Petty, a sophomore in CAS, does not eat out a lot, but is excited about a vegetarian taco truck.

“It sounds like a party in my mouth,” Petty said. “There aren’t a lot of places that offer vegetarian options so a place that’s all vegetarian I’d be thrilled about.”

Schedules for trucks for the upcoming months are still being finalized, but Sweet Tomatoes Pizza and Fugu Truck have confirmed BU spots, while Mother Juice and Taco Party Truck are still waiting to hear.  Schedules are available on the City of Boston website.