M o m & P op Food Tru ck: Lo cally M ade a n d L o cally Lo ved BY JAY REED
F
ood trucks have been a fascination for some time now, maybe even longer than many realize. It’s only been a year or so since the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile made its way to Starkville, but the iconic (and literal) hot dog truck has been around since the mid-1930s. Today, it’s more marketing than cooking, but it’s still on the road. (And if now you can’t get “I’d love to be an Oscar Mayer Wiener” to stop playing in your head, you’re welcome.) Jump forward a couple of decades, and perhaps a different sing-song tune is playing, announcing the ice cream truck rolling through your neighborhood. But food trucks, as we think of them today, have a little more recent history. There were King Taco trucks in Los Angeles as early as the 1970s, but 2008 was the year Roy Choi opened up the Kogi Korean BBQ truck. Since then, it’s been uphill… and downhill… and any direction a truck can go, as the food truck revolution continues to grow. Food Network lists at least six different shows about food trucks. I’ve personally attended two Food Truck Mash-Ups in Jackson. Food trucks aren’t going anywhere, or should we say they’re going everywhere? Food trucks are definitely trending. Bigger cities tend to see trends like these first. But in recent days, food trucks have gained a foothold in some of the smaller towns of Mississippi. Pontotoc has Tanglewood Food Truck Park, and Starkville hosts a park on the former site of its farmers’ market. A few years ago, it was hard to find a truck when you wanted one (dare I say needed?), but now, on most days, we’ve got choices. In the Starkville area, one of the trucks that has led the way in longevity and creativity is the Mom and Pop truck. It rolled into town in late March of 2020 with Chef Hunter Bell at the wheel, his wife Hannah riding shotgun. Originally a delivery van in California, it went all the way to Washington, D.C., to a company that built it out and painted it according to the Bells’ specifications, then it was picked up and driven
34 • April/May 2022
to Mississippi. But the journey for the Mom and Pop business started long before that. Hunter and Hannah both attended The W in Columbus, where Hunter got a culinary management degree. Ironically, they never met on campus; both lived in Starkville and connected by way of another local restaurant. Once married, they decided to stay in Starkville and open their own business. A food truck wasn’t necessarily the end goal, but after a brief foray into that world, it seemed like a solid stepping stone into the growing culinary scene. Before launching the truck, Hunter said, they had to find a base location, aka a “commissary.” This is common to all food trucks: everybody has to have a place to store food and supplies, clean the dishes, etc. But unless a truck already has a “brick-and-mortar” restaurant, the commissary is often behind the scenes. Customers see on social media where a truck will be parked and serving day to day, or perhaps get lucky enough to happen upon it while driving by, but after the windows are closed and it drives away, who knows where it goes? With Mom and Pop, however, the base location was announced before the truck ever hit the road: the former location of The Biscuit Shop on Washington Street, just a half block down from Main Street. (One purveyor of comfort food made way for another, it seems.) Despite the fact that they have a home base, it’s still a food truck life. Restaurants without tires tend to have a more regular schedule—certain days at certain times. Prep, serve, clean up, go home, repeat. When asked what a typical “day in the life” of a food truck looks like, Hunter said—not surprisingly—that there really is no typical day. That may be because they have a lot of irons in the cooking fire. Of course, the truck is the focus at the moment or at least the most visible to the hungry public. From it, they can serve quick meals from a parking space on the side of the street, or it may work as a vessel for catering, whether they serve from the truck itself or use it primarily to transport the food. The outer decor of the truck was actually designed with events in mind, and in a strange twist, the pandemic has helped pave the way for food trucks to be featured at wedding receptions and the like. As the time has passed and they’ve
