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About 80 of Hollister’s on-the-go-gourmets queued up March 5 for the launching of the Downtown Association’s Food Truck Tuesdays at the city lot on Sixth and East streets. With nearly a dozen trucks and tents to choose from, the popular event was off to a great start.
“We are excited to bring this back to the community,” said association Chief Executive Officer Omar Rosa, “We’ve got a couple of new vendors this year, and we are hoping everyone comes out to support these guys.”
“New” is a bit of a misnomer. While three vendors are making their first appearance at Food Truck Tuesdays, the March 5 lineup would have been familiar to anyone who attended the Hollister Farmers’ Market last year:
For the vendors, the chance to gather again enables them to get out into the open after the slow winter season.
“Everybody is kind of waking up out of hibernation,” said Aaron Ricketts, co-owner of Hapa Bros. “It is really good to see everybody out again. We have not seen some of these folks for a while, and they are all really craving these kinds of events.”
Kimberly Ramirez, a Hapa Bros. regular, came by with her family to grab one of their renowned spicy chicken sandwiches.
“We usually eat them at the Farmers’ Market,” she said. “This is our first time at Food Truck Tuesdays—we just had to come out when we heard they were going to be here. This is probably going to become our regular Tuesday dinner.”
Like most of the vendors, the Hapas have added a few new items since their appearances at the market, including Spam musubi and buffalo chicken sandwiches.
Toney Canty, of Canty’s Kitchen, has added a Big C Burger, an authorized version of the Johnny’s Burger from Johnny’s Bar & Grill, and Southern-Fried fish offered as tacos and sandwiches. “I have been looking forward to coming back,” Canty said. “It is great to get back in the swing of things, and I think we will have a great spring.”
Roberto and Rosa Landeros were in town from Gilroy, having spent the afternoon wine tasting at DeRose and Calera wineries in the Cienega Valley. While leaving town, they stumbled onto the food truck purely by chance and decided to stay. After surveying the offerings, they decided to try the tacos and chicken fingers at El Guapo and will return another Tuesday to explore further..
“There is a huge variety of stuff here,” Roberto said, “and we had to start somewhere! The food is wonderful. We are really into sauces, and these sauces are great. These guys know what they are doing.”
El Guapo owner Chef Alejandro Ceja said he is also offering a few new items, including his version of a Spam musubi bowl with garlic rice and a fried egg on top, along with shrimp empanadas topped with chipotle coleslaw.
Joseph Elmhorst, the owner of Steak Stop and an early advocate for food trucks in Hollister, has added cheese steak jalapeno poppers, keto-friendly selections, and a new pizza-style hoagie to his menu.
Elmhorst began petitioning the Hollister City Council to ease up on the restrictions on trucks in the city in late 2021 and was pleased to see the crowd of customers and the number of businesses that joined the Tuesday gathering.
“This is where our community—our public and our friends—can all hang out,” he said. “There is a great range of business here, and they have also opened it up to some tents, which is really exciting. This is a great start to the season and the year.”
Rosa said he is open to the concerns of owners of downtown brick-and-mortar restaurants and further events centering on food trucks will take their feedback into account.
“We will be having a conversation with those vendors,” he said, “and see if this is impacting them too much. They seemed supportive last year, but we don’t want this to be a negative for them, so we have to find a balance.”
Food Truck Tuesdays will continue through April 9 from 5 to 8 p.m., followed by the reopening of the Farmers’ Market on April 17.
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