Good things come in threes, and when it comes to food trucks, I guess they come in threes, too. This, the third sandwich shop on wheels after The Flying Stove and MMM Sandwiches, follows the trend I noticed when I visited the latter of those two previous examples: a bad precedent is being set for food trucks in Wichita.
Having spent some time in L.A., Flying Stove got it right, with a truck, attitude, and culinary chops that pull it off reasonably well. They do things like Thai tacos, vegetarian tostones, and truffle fries. For example, I went to that event recently at the Ice Center where all three of Wichita's food trucks were gathered for charity or something. In the one corner, you had The Flying Stove, serving umami burgers with a parmesan crisp, sugar snow peas, and rosemary potatoes. Not stuff you expect to find in a truck in Wichita! Right next to them was BS Sandwich Press, which featured things like... sandwiches.
Don't get me wrong, the basil turkey was all well and good (maybe not quite as pressed as it should have been, and the freshly-made chips were fine (definitely not as fried as they should have been), but you're throwing a panini press and a Fry Daddy into the back of a trailer and calling it a food truck. It's not even really a truck. It's a trailer. And if BS Sandwich Press gets to be called a food truck, then Wichita has had food trucks for years serving Mexican treats throughout the city.
Again, I like sandwiches as much as the next person, but I'm not going to chase down a truck to get some cold cuts. The challenge of a food truck is finding something unique and portable to attract an audience. Chimichurri fries. Whoopie pies. Cheeseburger dumplings. We're getting diminishing returns here, and if people think the only requisite to become a part of the food truck culture is to renovate a trailer and hit the road, the city isn't really much better off. read more