Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the tastes of downtown Waco are expanding — thanks to food trucks.

Food trucks are finding places to call home along the downtown streets, whether it’s Greek fare from Xristo’s Cafe, Asian-influenced sandwiches and tacos out of Club Sandwich, American-style food from What About Wednesday’s Express, or the Mexican burritos and quesadillas from Sergio’s.

And we can’t forget the sweet desserts and ice cream sandwiches that come out of the Vanilla Bean Bake Shoppe, a 1971 Airstream trailer that sits in the 500 block of Franklin Avenue most days.

“There’s such a mix,” said George Gaylord, who has carved out his own niche in the downtown food scene with his G&K’s Hot Dogs Inc. cart at the corner of Austin Avenue and Seventh Street. “No one is doing the same thing.”

Though Gaylord doesn’t have a food truck, he was the first mobile vendor to set up downtown. That was on April 1, 2013 — when many of his first customers thought his arrival with the cart was just an April Fool’s Day joke.

“I like my spot here,” Gaylord said. His cart sits atop the blue-and-white pattern that remains of the entrance to the old Cox’s Department Store.

Business continues to be good, he said, adding that the $2 and $3 prices for which he sells his Nathan’s Famous all-beef franks helps bring in repeat customers for a quick lunch.

While Waco’s food truck scene isn’t anything like that in larger cities such as Austin, Waco chamber officials think there’s a chance for significant growth in the years to come.

“I would think that trend is going to continue,” said Chris McGowan, director of urban development for the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce. “Many more businesses could come. It’s a great way to get into a business and grow it.”

Most of the food trucks are open from mid-morning to early afternoon to capture the lunch crowds, though some also offer evening hours or take part in occasions like First Friday Waco to draw visitors to experience downtown.

Getting started

Operating a food truck can be a more cost-effective way to start a restaurant business and provide a way to test menu options before starting a brick-and-mortar restaurant, he said.

That’s exactly the plan for Juan Villareal and Connor Elliott, business partners with What About Wednesday’s Express, a food truck offering dishes such as burgers, Philly cheesesteaks and Southwest chicken wraps. It opened in March.

Their truck is parked next to a former office space at Franklin Avenue and South Eighth Street that they are turning into a restaurant to be called What About Wednesday’s Bar and Grill. It will serve seafood, steak and pasta.

Villareal ran a grill by that name at the Lake Waco Golf Course, but closed it when the lease expired last fall as new management took over the facility.

The relatively non-descript white food truck, which Villareal is hoping to spruce up with airbrushing at some point, doesn’t get a lot of walkup traffic, he said. But they have been busy nonetheless because they offer free delivery downtown and to Baylor.

They make regular runs to customers at the next-door federal courthouse, Insurers of Texas on Austin Avenue and, while school was in session, the Baylor University School of Social Work.

On most days 85-95 percent of their business is delivery, he said.

“It’s been really good,” he said.

Once the restaurant is up and running Villareal plans to move the truck to another location, possibly closer to Baylor, and operate both sites.

“(Food trucks) are still new to Waco,” he said. “The concept is growing.”

Club Sandwich owner Youngdae Moon, meanwhile, had taken the opposite approach. He ran a cafe in the Hoffman Banana building at South Fourth Street and Clay Avenue for the nonprofit Waco Outreach Foundation. But that ended in 2012 during a reorganization effort by the foundation.

However, that paved the way for him to follow his dream of a food truck that could serve late-night crowds. Those later hours might be an option in the fall when Baylor students return, he said, but for now he’s open during lunch hours outside of Dichotomy Coffee & Spirits, 508 Austin Ave.

Evening hours are usually outside Dichotomy as well, though he’s also tried different sites, such as The Dancing Bear Pub near Baylor.

His menu offers Vietnamese- and Korean-inspired items such as sweet pork banh mi sandwiches (or a tofu version for vegetarians), braised beef tacos and “trashcan” rice or fries that are topped with meat and a medley of vegetables.

Sergio Garcia, owner of Sergio’s Mexican restaurant on Austin Avenue, is employing yet a different tack. Because lunchtime crowds at the restaurant were sometimes extremely sparse, Garcia chose to run the food truck during the daytime, then have the diner open on certain evenings.

He parks next to Club Sandwich, and the two food truck owners have a relaxed camaraderie and said they don’t view each other as competitors.

Garcia has had the food truck for three years and he used it at the Waco Downtown Farmers Market, he said.

It’s been a good move thus far, but it’s definitely been an adjustment, he said.

“It’s a big jump to be here (at the food truck),” he said, instead of just at the restaurant, which is open Wednesday through Saturday evenings. But it does serve lunchtime customers well, he said.

“People like to take a taco and go,” Garcia said.

Testing tastebuds

Moon’s Club Sandwich business partners are Ted and Randle Browning, owners of Shorty’s Pizza Shack near Baylor. The big challenge, Moon said, was finding tastes that customers would enjoy.

“We weren’t sure how Waco people would respond to the flavors,” Moon said. “We wanted something unique, but still tasty and not too distracting. Something ‘Asian-y,’ but still familiar.”

Randle Browning said she and her husband Ted served as taste-testers for Moon’s dishes and helped with suggestions.

“We were trying to figure out what works best,” Randle Browning said. “Even practical things, like how much meat to put on it.”

They seem to have hit Waco’s tastebuds squarely. Moon said that in the first month the food truck did three times the business they were projecting for it.

Moon wants the truck to be a social gathering spot as well.

“We want it to be a fun place to eat and hang out,” he said.

Another food truck that caters to ethnic tastes is Xristo’s Cafe, which sits across from Outdoor Waco near the Brazos River at Franklin Avenue and University Parks Drive.

Xristo’s serves up a variety of Greek food — gyros, falafel and baklava, for example — overseen by owner Stephanie Garman, who grew up with a Greek mother and Lebanese father.

Garman recalled that downtown Waco once had several eateries with Greek owners, such as Nick’s Restaurant owner Nick Klaras.

“He was our inspiration when we (Stephanie and husband Christopher) thought about a downtown cafe,” she said. “He said, ‘You should do it.’ We were finally able to do it in this way.”

It’s a full family endeavor, Garman said. She and Christopher have six children and they have involved all of them in some capacity with the business.

The business’ name is a play on “Christo,” the nickname of their 13-year-old son Christopher, the only boy in the family.

Xristo’s is off to great start since opening in March, she said.

“We feel very blessed,” she said. “We started doing something that you don’t know how people will react. But the response has been overwhelming to us.”

Garman said they’ve even gotten calls from people in Hewitt wanting to know if they were still open so they drive in and pick up some food.

The least mobile of the food sites downtown is Santa Fe Taqueria, which is located behind Muddle, an upscale bar and lounge at 727 Austin Ave.

It is wedged in behind Muddle and recently had a wood deck and tables built around its green and gold trailer.

Maria Alvarez owns the business, and husband Mauricio helps her run it. They also have a food truck by the same name at 25th and Bosque Boulevard, and it was because of that business that Muddle approached them about setting up shop behind the lounge.

Their thinking, Mauricio Alvarez said, was that having food nearby would keep customers at Muddle later into the night. Most of their food crowd tends to start arriving around 9 or 10 p.m., so it can make for late nights, he said.

Santa Fe Taqueria specializes in street tacos, and its Mexican Burger, which has ham, bacon, avocado and jalapeños added, has been popular, he said. He’s also proud of their corn tortillas, which are homemade.

Using social media

Most of the food trucks embrace social media to some degree, using a Facebook post or a Twitter tweet to let customers know they might be opening later than usual or not at all because of the weather.

But mostly it’s word of mouth that drives the business, hot dog stand owner Gaylord said.

“You build up a rapport with the people around here,” he said, adding that he often receives texts for orders that local businesses will come and pick up.

Becky Chollett, who runs her Vanilla Bean Bake Shoppe with her husband Galen, also underscores the importance of word of mouth. But she is a big advocate of using social media to share information about the business.

She spent 31 years at Baylor, most recently as the assistant dean of admissions at Baylor Law School, but began to explore her dream of entrepreneurship about two and a half years ago.

“I use some of the knowledge and communication skills from that job and carried it over to this adventure,” she said.

She uses Facebook and Twitter — and Instagram to a lesser extent — to keep customers updated about their schedule, special offerings (such as the occasional pulled pork sandwiches) and if they are in a different spot. Vanilla Bean Bake Shoppe also has a Robinson site in addition to the one on Franklin Avenue.

Moon with Club Sandwich uses a friendly banter on his posts and tweets in keeping with the “clubhouse feel” he seeks for his business. He recently let customers know he ran out of beef because he overcooked it. He’s also given away Club Sandwich T-shirts as promotional items.

But social media only takes “social” so far, and Chollett is pleased to see customers come by so she can engage them in conversation.

“That’s something I enjoy,” she said. “Getting to know the customer.”

More to come?

Megan Henderson, executive director of Waco Downtown Development Corp., is thrilled to see the food trucks filling spots downtown.

“First off, they have great food,” she said.

But the food trucks also add to the downtown experience, she said.

“It’s visually interesting,” Henderson said. “It’s adding attractiveness to the area. I would love to see a food truck in every vacant surface area. That gives people more choices.”

Stephanie Garman with Xristo’s agrees.

“We would love to have 10 food trucks there next to us,” she said.