Food Truck Friday returns to downtown

Food Truck Friday, the Phoenix institution that brought people out into the sunshine to bond over gourmet hot dogs, fry bread tacos and burritos filled with jambalaya, is set to return this week after an absence of more than a year.

The venue has moved a few blocks south from its original home at the

“It was almost like having a restaurant. Every Friday, people counted on us.” Michael Moore Owner, Jamburritos

Phoenix Public Market.

The reborn Food Truck Friday will take place at Civic Space Park between Central and First Avenues from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. each week. The park is across from the Arizona State University downtown campus and near the transit center.

Kat Moore, chief executive officer of Best In Show, the management company that has put on Food Truck Friday, said the event will start small, with just a few trucks.

Trucks confirmed for Friday, according to Moore: Short Leash Hot Dogs, Hibatchibot, Korean BBQ, Yellowman Fry Bread, Mingo’s Louisiana Kitchen and Mustache Pretzels.

The event will grow to eight food trucks by next week, when classes at ASU start. The weekly event, which started in November 2010, disappeared without warning in May 2016.

“We outgrew the space,” Moore said. “It was just too much.”

Moore, who along with her husband, Brad, operates Short Leash Hot Dogs, started the weekly gathering of food trucks in the parking lot of the Phoenix Public Market at Central and Monroe on Nov. 5, 2010.

The market, at the time, operated as a non-profit that sold locally-grown vegetables and locally-made products.

Moore had the idea to park four food trucks in the parking lot around lunchtime on a Friday.

“We had no idea who would show up,” she said.

The lines were 50 people deep, Moore said. Trucks ran out of food. “None of us were prepared,” she said. Though it took a dip in popularity over that holiday season, by the beginning of 2011 the event was drawing 600 people each week, Moore said.

The event drew downtown office workers and students. Badges clipped to khakis and purses indicated the trucks drew people from Chase Bank, the city of Phoenix and the Phoenix Suns. Mayor Greg Stanton was a semiregular and mentioned the event in his 2012 State of the City address.

The trucks rotated, but there were some regulars, including Jamburritos, with its Cajun burritos, Emerson Fry Bread and Mama Toledo’s pies.

“It was huge,” said Michael Moore, the owner of Jamburritos. “It was almost like having a restaurant. Every Friday, people counted on us being there.”

The market closed in 2012 as, records show, it struggled as a non-profit. It later reopened as a restaurant, Phoenix Public Market Cafe, owned by a partnership that included chef Aaron Chamberlin.

Chamberlin did not respond to a request for comment left with his publicrelations contact.