Austin has over 1,000 food trucks according to a 2016 census taken by KHOU. This quantity provides many opportunities to sample many different foods, from Tex-Mex to Thai, nitrogen ice cream to chocolate-covered bananas,

Some food trucks have even invented their own menus. They offer a variety of meals as well. There are trucks selling desserts, breakfast tacos, ice cream, barbecue, pizza, and more. Hey Cupcake! is a silver food truck with a giant pink cupcake on its roof. It sells a variety of cupcake flavors and frostings. Patrizi’s Italian Restaurant offers a number of Italian meals. In addition to stand-alone trucks, food truck parks, such as The Picnic, SoCo Food Truck Park, and Mueller Trailer Eats, boast a number of mobile eateries surrounding a central dining area, usually furnished with tables and umbrellas.

Many local restaurants, such as Micklethwait Craft Meats, only exist in truck form. Senior Paul Kim said he is impressed by both the diversity and the sheer number of food trucks in Austin. He said he likes food truck parks because it gives him an opportunity to try lots of different food.

“They’re really cool because whenever I go to a food truck park I just see different ones popping up here and there and it makes me want to try them,” Kim said.

Junior Daylyn Gilbert said food trucks take the pressure off of people going to a restaurant. When eating at a truck people can try a variety of different smaller snacks instead of just having one big meal. She also said that even though she enjoys these mobile eateries, she does not like when food truck parks do not rotate their trucks.

“I think it’s interesting when they have food truck parks that are different every time because it gives you the opportunity to not really know what’s there and be surprised,” Gilbert said.

Other LASA students also agree with this sentiment. Junior Cora Tien said that although she enjoys food trucks, they are better as a stand-alone extra and not in a group.

“My favorite food truck is Bananarchy,” Tien said. “I like it because it used to be parked in my neighborhood so I’d go home from school and see it every day. I never had had one and then I had one and it was actually pretty mind-blowing.”