FOOD TRUCKS AND CARTS Newburgh’s new way of serving locals and the tri-state

A NEW WAY TO SERVE Food trucks and carts are on the rise in the tri-state

WRITER: MARISA PATWA

Food trucks and food carts are popping up everywhere in Warrick County, from sporting events, birthdays and graduation parties, employee picnics, Christmas parades, wedding receptions, even the Newburgh and Warrick County farmers markets.

With hot dogs, ice cream pops and specialty pizza, these mobile meals have become a mania in their own right - especially during the spring and summer months. It’s like getting Fall Fest all year long. Curious about what makes these new methods of eating so popular, Newburgh Magazine profiled the owners of three Tri-State food trucks and carts, Kent Greathouse with River City Dawgs, Tom Martin with Papa T’s Tamales and Todd Megar with Lollys Pop Bar, who gave us the inside scoop on the tasty treats they serve, what makes them so special and where in the area you can grab some grub from them this year.

River City Dawgs

River City Dawgs is one of a few hot dog carts in the tri-state. Although owner Kent Greathouse feels more camaraderie than competition with his fellow hot-dog vendors. In fact, he is quite supportive of Newburgh’s own Dawgs on the Ohio.

For Greathouse, his venture started in 2015 when he randomly came home from work one day wanting to run a hot dog cart. He then built a cart and went from working his day job full-time to part-time to eventually running the cart full time. He and his wife Jennifer then ended operating it together until she passed away at the end of last year.

“We were married 31 years, but the last five we spent more time together running the hot dog cart,” Greathouse said. “I just love it. I said all my life, ‘I’ll get me a weenie wagon,’ jokingly. When you get old, what are you going to do? Just sit around and grow older? No, we wanted to get out and go to events and it just took off.”

These gourmet hot dogs are 100 percent natural all-beef, sandwiched in warm steamed buns.

“We have hot dogs, brats and smoked sausage,” Greathouse said. “I got my classic dog with mustard, ketchup, onion. Then the chili cheese dogs with chili cheese and onions. The Carolina Dogs have chili, coleslaw and brown mustard. The Slaw Dogs have brown mustard and slaw I make myself. The Westsider Dog is sauerkraut and brown mustard and the Chicago Style Dog is really popular with mustard, relish, onion, tomato wedges, pickle, spears, celery salt and served on poppy seed bun. I get my buns out of Chicago from Alpha Baking. They are made for steam.” River City Dawgs can often be found on Franklin Street near the bars on Friday and Saturday nights to help anyone satiate late cravings. Greathouse will also occasionally serve the Deaconess Women’s Hospital, Tri-State Orthopaedics and the Shoe Carnival Corporate Office, among others.

“I’m getting ready to go again this year,” Greathouse said. “I have a lot of people supporting me and offering to help me. [Jennifer] love’d doing it. I’m doing it.”

Papa T’s Tamales

The Greathouses were actually the inspiration behind Tom and Emily Martin’s food cart, Papa T’s Tamales, which they have run the past three years out of Posey County.

“Our first date was at the hot dog cart,” Tom Martin said. “And I proposed to her at the hot dog cart.”

As for the tamales - that was a request they kept getting from customers purchasing hot dogs when they were subbing for the Greathouses at River City Dawgs.

“One thing led to another and we built a hot tamale cart,” Tom Martin said. “We built it from scratch and went from there. My wife chose all of the colors, which made it stand out quite a bit.”

Tom Martin is speaking of the Papa T’s Tamales striking lime green color. “We meet a lot of interesting people and it’s nice giving them food that hasn’t been around here since old tamale guy, Charlie,” Tom Martin said. “We have new customers every year that have never had tamales, that don’t know what a tamale is. But once they have it for the first time, they enjoy it.” The tamales have a choice of being drenched in several flavorful condiments. “We can get chili, white queso, nacho cheese, sweet corn salsa, guacamole, salsa, sour cream, jalapenos and hot sauce,” Tom Martin said. “And we have a seasoned beef we can offer that we normally use for tacos.”

One tamale is $3 with choice of toppings, two tamales is $5, and three tamales is $7.

To check out where Papa T’s Tamales will be this year, find them on Facebook.

• River City Dawgs • Papa T’s Tamales • Lollys Pop Bar • Chino Taco • Acropolis Express • Tri-State Snack Shop • The Duffy Shuffle • The Kitchen • Queen B’s Cuisine • Pizza Revolution • Bruce Li • Kona Ice • Up in Smoke BBQ • Crazy Daisy’s Food Truck • The Cheese Queen • Dawgs on the Ohio • Miller’s BBQ • Taco 365 • Curbside Kitchenette

Lollys Pop Bar

Inspired by paleta vendors, the tri-state’s popular artisan ice-cream cart, Lollys Pop Bar, also known as Lollys Pops, has rich flavors remnant of their South American roots.

“We try to Americanize it a bit,” said owner Todd Megar. “Sometimes we’ll get two gallons of blackberries out of Darmstadt and it will be gone in a day and a half. We do a lot of fun stuff like that – sweet corn ice cream.” Those are just two of their 55 to 66 rotating flavors of ice cream, including their old school chocolate pudding pop.

“We put a little twist on it with Mexican vanilla and malted milk powder to get that great strong flavor mixed in with vanilla and really took it to the next level,” Megar said. “We also have strawberry lemonade and pink cactus pear. All of the younger girls like it because they think it tastes like sweet tarts. When peach season hits, we get fresh peaches from Engelbrechts and do peach ice cream, which everyone loves.”

During Fall Fest, they turn to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for their flavors.

“We do a butter-beer ice cream,” Megar said. “We also have salted caramel, homemade cookies and cream.”

Spicing things up this year, they are adding chocolate covered cheesecake pops to the menu.

“It’s pieces of cheesecake dipped in chocolate and frozen,” Megar said.

For the vegans out there, the vegan ice cream sandwich is the perfect sweet treat.

“All of our fruit popsicles are made with organic arcane sugar and not processed,” Megar said. “All our fruit ones are vegan. We also do coconut lime. If it’s pudding or cream, it has dairy — everything else is vegan.”

Although Lollys Pops is based in Evansville, they are setting their sights on Warrick County this year.

“We just bought a new truck this year just for Warrick County,” Megar said. “And we’re hoping to get into the Newburgh Farmers Market.”

Their retail freezer already made an appearance at the first ever Warrick County Winter Farmers’ Market at the end of 2019.

“We have a wholesale program where we provide the freezer,” Megar said. “People can run their own carts at minimal costs. We have two opening this year.” Currently, they sell their pops in New Harmony, Evansville, Owensboro, Henderson and Newburgh. “Everything is homemade in our commissary kitchen,” Megar said. “There are no instant or powdered mixes.”

This year, people can expect to see Lollys Pops at Downtown Newburgh Nights and most of the normal festivals.

Accessibility is the intrigue with food trucks along with how that intertwines with their culture, Megar added.

“It’s about being apart of the experience,” he said.

“It works because we can go places that other people can’t. To have this mobile kitchen that can just show up to any outdoor event, say the Front Porch Festival, and people don’t have to leave the event to sit in a restaurant and miss an hour of it, that’s great. Food trucks are the option.” — Todd Megar

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