HARLINGEN — Tantalizing food, live music and good times are coming to the city’s northern edge.
Near the new multimillion-dollar destination park, the city’s first food truck park has found a home.
On Wednesday, developer Christian Zanca was finalizing the purchase of about 2.5 acres near Lon C. Hill Park, the expanding destination park in the 1000 block of Fair Park Boulevard, just east of the Harlingen Convention Center.
By August, he’s planning to open his food truck park aimed at offering family entertainment, featuring 10 food trucks, each dishing out distinct menus prepared by chefs “proud” to cook up their mouth-watering fare, he said.
The park will also stage lineups of live music acts.
“We’re not going to charge cover unless we have a national act,” Zanca said.
Big family draw
Zanca, who co-owns a popular Brownsville food truck park, calls it “a great property” in an area which draws crowds to the destination park, the nearby Boys and Girls Club and the Harlingen Performing Arts Theater.
“It’s definitely the proximity to the new destination park, the convention center, the Harlingen theater and the Boys and Girls Club,” he said.
“I’d really like to work with the city to help promote that stuff,” he said. “I’d like to help build that area up for the community. It could be a really cool area if it’s done right.”
New city ordinance
In February, city commissioners passed an ordinance regulating food truck parks, the lively entertainment centers growing in popularity across much of the nation.
As part of the ordinance, officials require developers’ site plans specify their parks’ maximum capacity to determine numbers of restrooms and parking spaces.
The ordinance also requires food truck parks to comply with the city’s noise control ordinance.
Now, Zanca’s applying for a special use permit, which gives commissioners authority to determine the distance food truck parks will be located from neighborhoods.
At the site of his food truck park, the sounds of live music won’t be a problem, Zanca said.
“It’s not like we’re right up against a neighborhood,” he said. “We’re a couple of minutes away. We’re far enough away so we can bring in some musical acts and have a little fun.”
For Zanca, young families are his target audience.
Inside the park, he plans to feature acoustic guitar players and small solo acts, he said.
In about a year, he said, he might stage concerts there.
Business model
For months, Zanca’s been honing his business plan around the Broken Sprocket, the Brownsville food truck park which he co-owns.
Off Paredes Line Road, the two-acre food truck park features “a hip outdoor beer and wine garden and live music stage.”
Inside the park’s walls, brightly detailed food trucks surround a courtyard in which strings of lights hover over canopy-covered tables and park benches.
As part of his business plan, Zanca’s moving his own food truck to his new site.
The food truck he’s named The Melt specializes in “gourmet grilled cheeses” and “other melty goodness,” including entrees like his chicken strip melt and bacon brie, his tomato basil broccoli cheese soup and appetizers like The Melt Queso.
The new food truck park will also feature sand volleyball courts and even a dog park.
