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Restaurants & Bars

A Tour of Jason Boso’s Food Truck Park, the Truck Yard

By Carol Shih |
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Emily and Jason Boso (photography by Kyle Pennington)
Emily Perkins and Jason Boso (photography by Kyle Pennington)

Jason Boso has a lot on his plate. Not only did he open a new Twisted Root location in downtown Carrollton today, but he’s also been getting his Truck Yard nice and ready. It’s the one that’s right across the street from the new Trader Joe’s being built on the corner of Greenville Avenue and Sears Street.

A quick tour by Jason Boso, the local burger chain’s owner, yesterday revealed some of the exciting plans for the yard space. In the spirit of Swiss Family Robinson, one of the highlights is a treehouse bar with 14 seats inside. And because cocktails will be hard to make up there, Boso recruited drink whiz Emily Perkins to come up with a solution. The answer? Bottled Cable Cars made from cane sugar that comes from Perkins’ brother-in-law in Louisiana.

Airstream (left) and tree that will hold the treehouse (right)
Airstream (left)

Boso plans to put two other bars in his yard, making that a total of three. He’s converting an old Airstream into a bar and decorating it with pink flamingo lights. The other bar will go inside his cheesesteak restaurant, which he promises will have whole rib eyes sliced to order and rolls made from Village Baking Co. Carnival Barker’s ice creams will share some of the restaurant space and serve ice creams using its new pasteurizer. And they have a paleta cart. Aw, yeah.

As for food trucks, Boso says two to three food trucks will be hanging outside of the restaurant, even though there’s room for four (maybe five?). No cheesesteak trucks will be allowed on the premises, of course. After Richard Pollack asked Boso if he’s ever worked with trucks before, the Twisted Roots owner said, “No. And, yes, I’m a little scared. I’m going to consider it as challenging as ordering a staff.”

Old scavenged signs
Old scavenged signs that Jason Boso likes to collect and use for decoration
Future entrance (left); where the treehouse will go (right)
Future entrance (left); where the treehouse will go (right)
Future bar inside the cheesesteak restaurant
Future bar inside the cheesesteak restaurant

 

Even though they’re not sure which food trucks will be on board with this yard yet, Boso doesn’t plan to charge to use his space. (Maybe just $25/day to use the bathroom and for trash pick-up.) He just hopes they’ll bring the lunch and dinner crowds in. “Dallas food trucks are too transient,” he says. “They’re chasing catering money.”

George Lewis, our food truck guru, would like to end with these last thoughts. I say you hire Lewis to do all your food truck ordering for you, Boso. Save yourself the trouble.

“The Truck Yard” is a concept unlike what Dallas has seen before.  Ft. Worth has had several food truck parks but none have risen anywhere near this level.  Truck Yard is itself the destination with food by Dallas’ food trucks, unlike Fort Worth, where food trucks themselves are the destination reason and creates the food truck park.  Dallas itself has had a couple of quick-die food truck parks, including Heritage Village.  While the “Fly-By Food Truck Park” is a food truck park, it is completely different than “The Truck Yard.” The Fly-By is a piece of commercial real estate that is a home for food trucks with a nice air-conditioned building.  It offsets the costs of holding a vacant lot.  While we like Fly-By, we still expect this piece of commercial real estate to be gone before you get to the second utterance of location, location, location should someone make a decent offer.

 

 

 

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