Truck to Table: The Most Popular Food Trucks with Brick-and-Mortar Locations

With the gourmet food truck industry thriving nationwide, many food truck chefs are using the popularity of their mobile eateries to launch successful brick-and-mortar locations. This is very good news for you! If you can’t find your favorite truck on the nearest street, have no fear. You can head to one of their restaurant locations, guaranteeing that you’re going to get that favorite taco or lobster roll no matter where the dish is purchased. To get your curiosity going, here are some of the most popular truck to table transitions for all your must-try foodie finds.

Kogi – Los Angeles

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Starting off with just one truck back in 2008, Roy Choi and his now famous Korean bbq street tacos took Los Angeles by storm. Kogi is synonymous with the food truck culture and its incredible flavor combinations and a street food style has been credited with sparking the food truck boom in SoCal and beyond. Spicy pork and short rib burritos, kimchi quesadillas, pork belly rice bowls, and loaded, flavorful french fries are just some of the mouthwatering dishes you can find at a Kogi truck or at Choi’s first-ever brick-and-mortar restaurant located in Palms. Opened in April of this year, you can order the favorite dishes you get from the truck including the beloved tacos and quesadillas, the Kogi dog, or the even the Korean spiced fries. Whether you’re at the Kogi truck, visiting the Alibi Room in Culver City for some late night Kogi snacks, or you’re in the Palms neighborhood, we’re sure the food you eat will be so good, you’ll never want to leave.

 

The Chairman – San Francisco

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Popular San Francisco-based food truck, The Chairman, has set up permanent shop in the Tenderloin District, a move that has foodies in the Bay Area rejoicing. In what started as a Chinese-style steamed bun and baked bao food truck, The Chairman has now expanded to not only a restaurant in San Francisco, but in Los Angeles as well. Most loved for their pork belly braised in Coca-Cola inside a steamy, fluffy bun topped with pickled daikon, the food at this truck has been known to have lines of over 40 minutes long. While we can’t guarantee that the wait at the Tenderloin location will be any shorter, we can promise that the food is just as incredible.

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Peached Tortilla – Austin

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Southern comfort food with an Asian flare is what The Peached Tortilla does, and they do it well. So well, that they don’t have just one, but two trucks roaming around Austin in addition to their brick-and-mortar location on Burnet Road. Eric Silverstein sought to create a menu that reflected his childhood spent in Japan combined as well as his Southern influences and his delectable pad thai and BBQ brisket tacos, JapaJam burger, and bacon jam fries are doing just that. Another reason to check out the brick-and-mortar? The incredible Sunday brunch that The Peached Tortilla offers, made complete with a fiery and flavorful Wasabi Mary.

Korilla BBQ – New York City

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Winners of the Food Network’s Great Food Truck Race and overall masters of making a perfect rice bowl, Korilla BBQ and their tiger striped restaurant are not to be missed if you find yourself in New York City. Owner Edward Song has been serving the streets of NYC with the most delicious Korean-style tacos and burritos since 2010 and with the great food came great success. Korilla BBQ now has one of the most recognizable brick-and-mortar locations in the city, so when you absolutely need that bulgogi marinated in a savory soy blend served on top of freshly made sticky rice and topped with red kimchi, kale, and the secret K’lla sauce, just keep an eye out for that black and orange building.

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Da Lobster – Chicago

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When you just can’t justify spending $14 on a lobster roll (although it’s totally worth it) only to eat it in a hurry on the sidewalk, foodies in Chicago can now feast on the signature decadent dish at one of the Da Lobster‘s storefront locations on Clark Street or Clinton Street. Offering the traditional crustacean dishes, owner J Wolf also provides foodies with a few ethnic lobster roll options, like the South of the Border, topped with lettuce, cheese, and guacamole, or the Genghis Kahn, Asian slaw on top of lobster drizzled with Szechuan sauce. Whatever you prefer when you’re needing your lobster fix, this Windy City eatery deserves a spot on your radar.

 

The list can go on and on, as trucks going brick-and-mortar continues to be a growing trend. Whether you’re eating those Kogi short rib tacos on the curb or enjoying a brisket eggs benedict at The Peached Tortilla restaurant, there’s no denying the deliciousness of what once began as tasty, gourmet street food fare.


If you’re interested in becoming a food truck owner, go to the Roaming Hunger Marketplace and read these articles we created just for you:

First, read about how much a food truck will cost and what to think about.

Next, learn about food truck commissaries.

We also collected advice from 61 food truck owners about the best way to start a food truck business.