Food trucks park on South Campus on weekend nights

South Campus students now have another late-night food option on the weekends.

Food trucks are parked in Bowles Drive Parking Lot every Thursday through Saturday night.

Justin Maness, a Baguettaboutit food truck employee, said their truck goes to a lot of campuses, but he said Chapel Hill is their first late-night opportunity.

“We are doing this on Duke’s campus and N.C. State’s campus and even at breweries like Fullsteam and Double Barley – we are all over,” he said.

Randy Young, spokesman for the UNC Department of Public Safety, said Carolina Dining Services worked this out in order to serve the students’ late night appetites.

“They contacted us to identify an area that had parking, a spot that did not have enforced parking, one that had a large population and had good visibility.”

Ryan Moore, food service director for Carolina Dining Services, said in an email if the food trucks have more customers, students will likely see more.

“For now no more than three food trucks are able to schedule a particular night to start. This is to mostly protect the trucks from losing interest due to cold weather and low turnout,” he said.

Renard Edwards, a Baguettaboutit employee, said they did not leave on the first night until about 1:30 a.m., but the foot traffic could have been better.

“For people to not know that we were coming – for us to just show up – the word got out pretty decent,” he said. “It wasn’t an overwhelmingly great night, but it was pretty decent night out here for people to not know about it before.”

Maness said the turnout was underwhelming, but he said he is expecting more people to come when it is warmer.

“People don’t want to come out here in this weather when it is this cold, but I think once it starts to be warm, around March or April time, we will get a lot more people coming out here,” he said.

Giselle Montgomery and Devon Williams, juniors at UNC, said having the food trucks will be great as long as they are cheap.

“I think it is good because we need as many food options as we can support,” Montgomery said.

“Especially with lower cost,” Williams said. “A lot of the options, especially on Franklin Street, aren’t as cost-effective.”

The trucks will not be in the Bowles lot during basketball games, but Edwards said they will hopefully be there for a few football games.

Maness said he expects more people to come out when it warms up and people spread the word about the food trucks being there.

“When word comes through and people start spreading the word that there are food trucks there from (10 p.m.) to (2 a.m.), then people will get stoked about it.”

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