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Food trucks to storefronts? Mexican restaurants everywhere?

Why choose?

Two Memphis food trends are coming together in the weeks ahead on Germantown Parkway, where popular food truck Taco Cat will open its first brick-and-mortar location, as Sophia Surrett reports. 

Sophia Surrett: Taco Cat truck to open brick-and-mortar location

Not every food truck expands into a traditional restaurant. Not every food truck operator even wants to. But it’s become a good stepping stone, offering would-be restaurateurs a chance to hone and test their goods, and build a customer base and some brand recognition, before making the bigger investment. 

Taco Cat, at a busy intersection just around the corner from the Shelby Farms Park off-leash area, is among the more comfortable taco-truck set-ups in town. It seems like not only will the truck remain, but it will sprout a second location further east. 

But it will also now have a storefront a little further north, where new visitors will discover the menu only starts with tacos. Here’s hoping the churros rellenos from the truck make the trip to the shop.

Taco Cat won’t be the first taco truck to open a traditional restaurant in the neighborhood. El Mero made a similar journey a few years ago. 

Both the El Mero truck and the Taco Cat truck made my list of 15 Germantown Parkway faves this summer. 

Sophia Surrett: Taco Cat truck to open brick-and-mortar location

But food-truck-to-storefront transitions now abound on the local food scene, where not too long ago trucks were rare. 

Sugar Ghost introduced their bubble teas from a pastel pink truck before opening first one, and then a second, ice cream/tea shop.

I once followed a bright red taco truck, Tacoholic, from the Memphis Medical District to Olive Branch, where it’s now put down roots as Old Town Tacos.

I think my favorite local truck has always been instead an orange bus, the Thai food Soi No. 9, which hasn’t opened a full restaurant but parlayed its truck popularity into a standing location on the University of Tennessee Health Science Center campus. 

New Wing Order became a staple at the Levitt Shell and other outdoor events before partnering with Ghost River Brewery on a Beale Street location. With the basketball season starting up again, that wings-and-beer pairing is an essential FedExForum sidekick.

Chris Herrington: Sound Bites: Road trip food favorites and a potential barbecue relocation

Loaf started serving its artful comfort food out of an Airstream trailer behind the First Congo Church in Cooper-Young before relocating inside the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. This weekend, they’ll be collaborating with coffee crew Cxffeeblack on a brunch event. 

If Taco Cat embodies that trend, it also embodies another: Too many Mexican restaurants is still not enough for Memphis. 

In addition to Taco Cat, we learned this week that Maciel’s, a staple of Downtown and Cooper-Young, is planning a third location, laying a claim to Memphis Mexican dining’s ground zero, on Summer Avenue.

And the former Nineteenth Century Club building in Midtown, most recently a Red Hook seafood restaurant, will soon become a Tekila Modern Mexican restaurant. Given the recent history of restaurants in that rather opulent location … good luck!

If there’s anything Memphis likes more than tacos (or, right, barbecue), it’s chicken, and more options are coming in the form of the Big Chicken chain, which is eyeing multiple yet-to-be-specified Memphis-area locations. 

Sophia Surrett: Former Nineteenth Century Club to become ‘Modern Mexican’ restaurant

What goes well with fried chicken? If you’re one who partakes, Bourbon is a pretty good answer. And Memphis bourbon is expanding its footprint via B.R. Distilling. 

In other new restaurant news, Sam’s Corner, a new kosher spot at the Memphis Jewish Community Center, is just around the corner. 

Already open, as of this week: Grisanti’s on Main in Collierville. 

And that’s about it for this week. I’m hitting the road for an extended weekend trip, which spurred some conversation on Sound Bites this week about gas-station fuel options, beyond the pump: Drinks? Salty snacks? Sweet snacks? “Real” food?

Holly Whitfield, Natalie Van Gundy and I talked about our respective gas-station grub preferences and weaknesses. Spoiler alert: None of us are grabbing anything off of those rollers. 

Have a good week, y’all. Maybe enjoy the fall weather by hitting up a taco truck. 

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