UCA hosted its first Food Truck Festival in tandem with Homecoming Week which prompted a desire for more events like this on campus.
“It would be pretty awesome if we could have food trucks more often,” senior Alexis Mosely said.
Ten food trucks attended the festival: Smackin’ Wings & Things, Joyful Baking Co., Taqueria Don Manny, Hibachill, Wade’s BBQ, Kingdom Made Treats, Juice Me Up, Dee’s Soulfood, Nach’yo Nachos and Fry Fry Crazy.
Las Delicias also participated but they did not have a truck. They normally operate out of their store at 1815 Old Morrilton Hwy in Conway. They provided Popsicles and street corn, a fraction of their normal menu, under a tent at the festival.
Francisco “Frank” Yanez, owner of Las Delicias, said his store participated at the food truck festival to “give a little taste to the students, something different.”
Sophomore Faith Wentz said, “It’s pretty cool … that [UCA] thought about bringing them out to give us more opportunity to try out different things.”
Nadia Eslinger, associate director for Student Success and former president of Staff Senate, organized the festival.
As former Staff Senate president, Eslinger was working on making a festival happen last year.
“I was not able to get it off the ground last year, so I revisited the idea this year,” Eslinger said. “Fortunately, we have a new general manager with Aramark who was very open to the idea of a food truck festival.”
Eslinger and Joshua Gorham, general manager of Aramark, brainstormed the event to create an environment for faculty, staff and students to mingle.
“A lot of UCA faculty and staff eat lunch in our offices or break rooms with only the people in our offices,” Eslinger said. “I wanted to create opportunities for faculty, staff and students to get outside and enjoy a meal together … We had a meeting and [Gorham] was all for finding ways to get faculty and staff out of their offices for meals.”
Eslinger’s goal for having the event during Homecoming Week was to open up the homecoming experience to the entire UCA community.
“I think there is a misconception that homecoming is just for students,” Eslinger said. “It is not. It is for the entire campus. This event will get a lot of faculty and staff out of their offices and celebrating homecoming together with our awesome students.”
Not only was the event designed to boost community camaraderie but it also boosted Conway’s local businesses.
“Food trucks are a really great way to enjoy great food and support local businesses,” Eslinger said. “I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a while, I’m just really happy we made it happen this year.”
Some UCA band members were also playing music to add to the festival ambience.
Eslinger plans to do a Food Truck Festival next homecoming and urged other local businesses to get involved.
“We reached out to almost 30 food trucks and from the ones who were available that day we tried to pick a variety of types of food,” Eslinger said. “We hope to do this again next year so any trucks that we couldn’t get this time, we hope to get next time.”