Photo: Dean Blinkhorn
GOOD EATS:
‘Fabulous Food On Four Wheels‘ By Rick Allen • Photos By John Jernigan
One of Ocala’s hottest dining scenes is happening downtown, probably as you read this. No, it’s not one of the fancy barbecue/Asian/ New Orleans/French eateries that are dotting the square with increased frequency. No, this burgeoning scene idles up every day to a parking spot in the shadow of the Ocala Downtown Market. Four wheels at a time.
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decade ago, the Ocala area was bereft of most street food. Sure, we had some hot dog stands—Remember the downtown Hot Dog Lady, Judy Havican?—and the occasional food served from carnival-vintage trailers at special events like Light Up Ocala. But we were the hinterlands when it came to the hottest trend in dining back then, food trucks—or so said John T. Edge, a New York Times food columnist who visited Marion County in 2010 as a guest lecturer at the Downtown-based Institute Of Human & Machine Cognition. “2009 was the year that American street food came out of the closet,” he told us one early spring evening. “Street food is hip.” We had precious little here, he added,
OCALA’S GOOD LIFE retirement redefined
compared with meccas such as New York, Philadelphia, Portland, and even the once-a-month gatherings in Gainesville. But we’re catching up! In the past lustrum there’s been steady growth in the number of food trucks in Marion County. Note: Whether it’s a true truck that moves under its own power or is a trailer pulled by another vehicle, it’s still called a “food truck.” The main problem faced by operators was a “where” issue, as in, where to set up for the day? Permission was needed, and not always given, from property owners, so attempts were made to create a permanent home such as those described by Edge. But they never caught on for long. That’s all changed today.
