Five favorite Twin Cities food trucks

Brent Schoonover

Our favorite meals on wheels!

​Food truck season is in full swing. Now, if only the weather would cooperate!

Here are five of our favorite street eats well worth braving the dreary damps.

Lisa Carlson cooking up some trailer treasure!

​5. Chef Shack
The pioneers of our local food truck revolution, Carrie Summer and Lisa Carlson bring a gourmet, local, organic approach to humble eats, turning them into trailer treasure! Find a changing array of bison burgers, sweet potato tacos, herring sandwiches, beet ice cream, Indian-spiced mini-doughnuts, and more. These goods have secured the Chef Shack both City Pages' Best Street Food and Best Desserts awards.

Sameh Wadi takes a brief break from WSK cookin'.

​4. World Street Kitchen
The fine-dining favorite Saffron brings a casual version of its international cooking to Fifth and Nicollet. Chef Sameh Wadi puts his own spin on banh mi and rice bowls but stays true to his mother's recipe for spinach pie. Wadi's fare earned the truck last year's City Pages Best Food Truck award.

Move over, White Castle: Gastrotruck's stellar sliders.

​3. Gastro Truck
Chef Stephen Trojahn, formerly of Cosmos, treats street eats with four-star seriousness. Sliders are the truck's specialty--grass-fed beef meatloaf with tomato-bacon jam, for instance--but his ever-changing, wide-ranging menu has all sorts of surprises in store, from the wheatberry salad to the banana/peanut butter whoopee pie.

Smack Shack's signature lobster roll.

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2. Smack Shack
It still seems hard to believe that you can find an ocean-fresh lobster roll--plump, sweet meat tucked into a hunk of buttery Texas Toast--in the middle of downtown Minneapolis. So rub your eyes and whip out your wallet. For less than $10, you can indulge in one of the tastiest street food lunches.

Barrio's soft shell crab taco: you won't find it in the restaurant.

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1. Barrio Truck
The Barrio Truck is a mobile kitchen offshoot of the restaurant, with several wheels-only exclusives to make up for the lack of tequila shots. Chef-driven Latin street food includes the soft shell crab taco, barbacoa burrito, and a Mexican-style hot dog topped with bacon, beans, roasted poblano peppers, pico do gallo, and mustard.

Previous Coverage
Twin Cities Food Truck Map
Best new Twin Cities street eats
Gastro Truck, Barrio, Hola Arepa and More
Twin Cities Street Food, pt. 2
Street Food Takes Over the Twin Cities