Food Truck Draws Crowd

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The Herald-Sun (Durham, North Carolina) Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News October 1, 2007 Monday

Food truck draws crowd BYLINE: Remy Scalza, The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C. SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS LENGTH: 992 words

Oct. 1--CARRBORO -- Can tacos help bring a town together? Stop by Ismael Santillano's Mexican food truck -- on the corner of West Main Street and Westview Drive, about a mile outside downtown Carrboro -- and you might be surprised. From the back of a converted delivery van, Santillano is quietly bridging the cultural gap in a community where the Hispanic population grew by more than 1,000 percent in the '90s, from 199 people in 1990 to 2,062 in 2000, the date of the most recent census. He just happens to be doing it with tacos and burritos. "It's the universal language," he said in Spanish. "Everybody likes to eat." Santillano, who lives with his wife and three children in Chapel Hill, parks his truck next to a Mexican grocery tucked inside what used to be Johnny's Sporting Goods. He's open 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Tonight the lot is full. Some customers sit and eat in their cars, listening to Mexican ranchera music with their windows rolled down. Up at the truck, college students wait in line with construction workers just finishing their shift. Santillano said his taco truck attracts an eclectic crowd -plenty of Latinos but other members of the community as well. "It's so cheap, and the food is so good," said Carter Hubbard, a Carrboro resident who lives just across the street and has been coming to the truck since it appeared there a year ago. "And my Spanish is minimal, but they work with me." Santillano's menu is spelled out in bright, stick-on letters on the side of the truck. It's in Spanish, but most words don't need translation. A pair of tacos will set you back $2. A burrito, which is big, goes for $6. The operation itself is modest. Santillano, who can look serious until he smiles, said he bought the truck for $15,000 when he started his business last year. Under fading white paint, the name Mimi's Hot Dogs -- evidence of the vehicle's previous life -- is just visible. Santillano's isn't the only taco truck in town. Another lunchero, as they are known, also selling Mexican food, sets up shop on North Greensboro Street, across from Carr Mill Mall, in the parking lot of Fitch Lumber.

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Officially, the sale of food and other goods from motor vehicles is prohibited in Carrboro, said James Thomas, a town planner. But the taco trucks fit under an exception outlined in Carrboro's 1981 land use ordinance: Because all food is prepared by the vendors themselves, the trucks can sell to the public. Still, these "mobile food units" must operate in tandem with an actual restaurant that has a permit from the health department, said Ron Hedrick, environmental health specialist from the Orange County Health Department. About a half dozen of these units are currently operating in Orange County, he said. Inside the close quarters of his taco truck, Santillano shares duties with his wife, Norma. While he's busy pressing fresh tortillas, Norma -- who wears a white apron that sets off her short dark hair -- takes orders through a side window. "Tenemos asada, tenemos pastor ...," she says, rattling off a list of taco fillings to a new customer. "We've got beef, we've got pork ...." Ismael and Norma both came to the U.S. from Mexico. He immigrated from Guanajuato, a city in the central part of the country, to California 20 years ago. Norma is from Mexico City. They started a family in California but after 10 years decided to leave the West coast for North Carolina. "We moved for our children," he said. "Life is more peaceful here. There are more problems with gangs in California." After working in kitchens for years, Santillano finally decided to strike out on his own. He still spends eight hours a day working in a local restaurant. But now from Monday to Thursday night, he's also busy serving customers from his truck. Business has been brisk. Santillano estimates he gets about 50 orders on an average night and pulls in around $200. Customers come because the food is authentic, he explained. "We try to give them more of a Mexican flavor," he said. "In the restaurants around here, the food is more Tex-Mex." Santillano's menu is sprinkled with offerings not likely to be found at Taco Bell. Hubbard, who lives next door, likes the sopes. Priced at $2.50, these appetizer-sized tortillas are deep-fried, then layered with meat and cheese. "I don't eat a whole lot at night, so I usually get a sope," she said. Options are also available for more discriminating tastes. Among less conventional fillings on the menu are hígado (liver), lengua (tongue) and even cabeza (brain). Samuel Gomez, a 20-year-old immigrant from the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico, said the food reminds him of home. Gomez, who works in construction, came to North Carolina a year ago. He lives just around the corner and usually stops by after work. Between bites of a taco, he gives the food truck his seal of approval. "It's my favorite restaurant," he said in Spanish. "The food is good. The prices are good, too." As the shadows in the parking lot grow longer, customers continue to trickle in to Santillano's food truck. A man with a cowboy hat and a mustache drives up and places an order. Nearby a woman wearing designer sunglasses and a trendy summer dress waits for tacos.

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Santillano, busy frying tortillas in the kitchen, takes a second to dream about his future. "I want to have a real restaurant," he said. In the meantime, his customers are happy the truck is here. "Carrboro is such an accepting community of all kinds of people," Hubbard said. "Having Latino culture integrated into American culture is a good thing. It's just another evolution of a culture that doesn't have one face." Copyright (c) 2007, The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. LOAD-DATE: October 2, 2007 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH ACC-NO: 20071001-DR-Food-truck-draws-crowd-1001 PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper JOURNAL-CODE: DR Copyright 2007 The Herald­Sun