The Food Truck Throwdown in Dewey Square completely lucked out weather-wise; with crisp autumn air and warm sunshine, it was the perfect day to enjoy Boston and New York’s finest food trucks.
The space ended up being far too small, with fourteen trucks (seven from each city) crammed into a slim section of Dewey Square. As is the problem with so many food truck festivals, lines were abundant and long.
Food Truck Throwdown: The Contenders
I was psyched to cheer on several of my favorite Boston food trucks and loved seeing the Big Apple’s finest food trucks bring their A-game to the table.
Boston Food Trucks
On the Boston side, we had:
- Roxy’s Grilled Cheese: Boston’s long time favorite grilled cheese truck
- Bon Me: Vietnameese noodle bowls and sandwiches
- The Cookie Monstah: Fresh baked cookies on steroids
- Staff Meal: Restaurant staff inspired burritos and tacos
- Mei Mei Street Kitchen: Creative Chinese-American cuisine
- Lobsta Love: Lobster from the city that knows it best
- Kickass Cupcakes: The cupcake truck to curb your sweet tooth
New York Food Trucks
Our New York challengers were:
- Nuchas: A food truck specializing in empanadas
- Bian Dang: Taiwanese cuisine
- Big D’s Grub: Tacos and grinders featuring Asian and Latin flavors
- Fishing Shrimp: Truckin’ seafood to the city dwellers
- Mike ‘n’ Willie’s: Gourmet tacos, sliders, and more
- The Munchie Mobile: Burgers and fries to ease the empty stomach
- Wafels & Dinges: Waffle-centric food truck introducing the concept of a pulled pork waffle. Best idea ever
The Winners: To The Victor Goes the Spoils
Food trucks competed to snag the top title for nine different categories.
Best Sweet Item – Wafels & Dinges (NYC)
Best Savory Item – Staff Meal (BOS)
Best Taco – Fishing Shrimp (NYC)
Best Vegetarian Item – Wafels & Dinges (NYC)
Best Asian Inspired Item – Bon Me (BOS)
Best Sandwich – Lobstah Love (BOS)
Best Seafood Item – Nuchas (NYC)
Best Crew – Wafels & Dinges (NYC)
Best Truck Design – Roxy’s Grilled Cheese (BOS)
New York beat out Boston just barely, collecting 5 out of the 9 awards.
Wafels & Dinges were the champions, driving back to NYC with 3 of the titles: Best Sweet Item, Best Veggo, and Best Crew.
Boston won People’s Choice Award for Best Food Truck City, proving Boston’s growing love of food trucks is no temporary fad. <3
Best Crew was decided by NYC food truck blogger Street Grub Steve and our own Steve Leibowitz of HubFoodTrucks.com. Good job Steve squared!
Learning From The Enemy
While we’re all just one big loving food truck family, everyone knows that even family members harbor secret grudges and grievances. Boston and NYC understand this family rivalry more than most cities. So what can we learn from (aka steal) from our big-city pals?
Consider which trucks were most successful at the Food Truck Throwdown- Wafels & Dinges swept away the competition with their incredibly novel food truck grub, making customers re-think the capabilities of the common house waffle – namely, a new spin on something familiar.
Wafels & Dinges earned admiration as “Best Crew” because of their lively energy, fun vibes, and easy conversation with customers. That’s good know-how for anyone looking to start up a food truck business, or hoping to improve an existing food truck biz.
Where you at the Food Truck Throwdown? What did you think? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment and tell us about your experience.
UPDATE: Photos from Food Truck Throwdown are now up!
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