Shake up your eating out routine and chase down one of these great food trucks.
Kids and restaurants don’t always mix. Between policing public table manners, juggling high chairs, and defusing tantrums, a meal out with the family can sometimes feel like more work than firing up the oven in your own kitchen. But whether you’re a parent, babysitter, or nanny, you can still take the kids out to eat well without reservations and without the stress.
Chicago’s food trucks serve up quality, inventive, fun food that you can take to-go and eat on the sidewalk, in the park, or at home. And lucky for parents, the city’s food truck scene keeps growing. We’ve rounded up 10 options to give your family a taste of something new this summer.
The Fat Shallot
Address & Hours: Find the truck’s location on Twitter, or check its schedule.
Phone: 773-893-0826
This popular truck is owned by a husband and wife (and parents of two) and serves up gourmet sandwiches. Husband Sam is a veteran of fine dining restaurants, including Everest and the Pump Room, so expect upgraded versions of classics. The grilled cheese is muenster on sourdough with spinach and caramelized onions, while the BLT adds a hint of truffle aioli flavor with bacon, arugula, tomato, and avocado. For an extra special treat, add an order of their fries tossed in rosemary salt or spicy sesame aioli. During the week, you can also get a taste of the Fat Shallot at their brick-and-mortar location at Revival Food Hall.
Bruges Brothers
Address & Hours: Find the truck’s location on Twitter.
Phone: 312-973-3884
Finally it’s your child’s chance to have french fries as their main dish. Bruges Brothers is a Chicago food truck inspired by Belgian street food — pommes frites with all kinds of toppings. Choose frites topped with sauces like Swiss fondue, sambal-spiked chili mayo, or traditional horseradish, lemon, and black pepper aioli. Really hungry? Go all in with Bruges Brothers’ loaded cones — fries paired with hefty ingredients like grilled hanger steak with caramelized onions, or mushroom gravy with crispy leeks.
Tamale Spaceship
Address & Hours: Find the truck’s location on Twitter.
Phone: 312-371-1053
One of Chicago’s oldest food trucks, Tamale Spaceship brings a quirky touch to its operation. Expect to be handed your lunch by a luchador. (Employees wear the masks made famous by Mexican lucha libre wrestlers.) Theatrics aside, Tamale Spaceship serves up inventive spins on traditional Mexican street food. Try their tamales in flavors like adobo roasted chicken with poblano mole or roasted beets and goat cheese with garlic-morita chile sauce.
5411 Empanadas
Address & Hours: Find the truck’s location on Twitter.
Phone: 773-755-5411
You know 5411’s empanadas are good because the original food truck has spawned five restaurants in Chicago. Started by a group of Argentinians-turned-Chicagoans, the truck serves baked versions of the traditional Argentine pocket pastries. (They happen to be perfectly kid-sized.) 5411 Empanadas has plenty of options to please even picky eaters. Try Malbec beef, sweet corn, ratatouille, or caramelized onion and Parmesan. Don’t skip sides of their flavorful chimichurri and hot sauces for dipping.
Yum Dum Truck
Address & Hours: Find the truck’s location on Twitter, or check its calendar.
Phone: 847-376-1925
This bamboo-spangled food truck serves steamed dumplings and baowiches (served on fluffy Chinese-style buns). Yum Dum Truck mixes traditional tastes with creative takes. Try the owner’s mother’s recipe for pork and chive dumplings or the mash-up “Kimcheesy” rice balls with cheddar jack cheese, kimchi, jalapenos, and scallions. Baowiches offered include the Korean chili chicken with spicy slaw and the braised pork belly with pickled mustard greens, crushed peanuts, and cilantro.
The Corner Farmacy
Address & Hours: Find the truck’s location on Twitter, or check its schedule.
Phone: 563-271-7936
The Corner Farmacy brings the farm to you. This sustainability-focused truck serves sandwiches, soups, and salads made from locally sourced ingredients. Choose from an all-day menu of breakfast sandwiches, like the classic with bacon and cheddar on sourdough or the “Magic Mushroom” with sautéed criminis with Swiss cheese, arugula, and pesto on multigrain. The Corner Farmacy’s seasonally changing lunch menu offers dishes like lamb skewers, veggie burgers, and spicy shrimp gazpacho. Wash it all down with one of their rainbow of cold-pressed juices. Not many food trucks also offer juice cleanses.
Izakaya Yume Sushi
Address & Hours: Find the truck’s location on Twitter.
Phone: 224-567-8365
Niles Japanese restaurant Izakaya Yume hit the road this spring. They’re now serving lunch around Chicago from their new food truck. The sushi burritos are a familiar (and portable) way to introduce choosy kids to sushi. Try the bulgogi version that puts a Korean spin on Japanese flavors. Izakaya Yume’s poké bowls are made fresh to order. Choose from their daily options like spicy tuna or Scottish salmon. Also on the menu are rotating side dishes, like miso soup and takoyaki — crisp balls of batter sprinkled with bonito.
Happy Lobster Truck
Address & Hours: Find the truck’s location on Twitter, or sign up for an email newsletter.
Phone: 312-485-0342
Get a taste of the ultimate upscale ingredient — lobster — without any fuss or even any silverware. Run by three friends, the Happy Lobster truck serves Maine lobster in classic butter-drizzled lobster rolls, in spicy versions topped with giardiniera, and in lobster grilled cheese sandwiches on challah. Other choices include a fried haddock sandwich and bowls of clam chowder and king crab bisque. Whoopie pies your kids are sure to love round out the East Coast fare.
Jerk
Address & Hours: Find the truck’s location on Twitter.
Phone: 312-763-2870
Jerk is a Jamaican restaurant on wheels. The specialty is, you guessed it, jerk chicken, marinated, chopped, and served with Jamaican hard dough bread. Round out the meal with “Festival” cornbread fritters, fries tossed in jerk rub, and Jamaican classic sodas. Can’t catch the rolling restaurant? Good news: The ever-popular truck has opened up a brick-and-mortar location in River North.
A.Sweets Girl
Address & Hours: Usually open Tuesday – Sunday, noon – 6 p.m., at Michigan Avenue and Monroe Street. | Check Twitter for daily updates.
Phone: 312-404-9415
Owner Anna Wu worked as a restaurant pastry chef before taking her cupcakes to the streets with the A.Sweets Girl truck. The truck serves from-scratch cupcakes in flavors like gluten-free pink vanilla and “Coconutty,” coconut cake topped with cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut. You can also choose from hazelnut and pink vanilla macarons, cake pops, and cones of soft serve ice cream in vanilla and mango.
Did we list all your favorite Chicago food trucks? Tell us in the comments below!
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