A new food truck opened July 4 at the Stuart Baptist Church during the Independence Day and firework celebration.
The business, which is housed in the former Noonies Grill building, was created by Thomas Walker for his children – daughter Evangeline, 10; and son Bailey, 11.
Walker said he bought the business for his children, who will serve as the long-term owners and operators.
“This is for them. They have sold different things over the past and they’ve gotten more entrepreneurial over the years,” he said.
Previously, the Walker kids have sold lemonade, operated a cleaning service, pet watching business, and worked other odd-end jobs.
“We’re adding this” to the list, he said. “I’m financing it, but they are the brains and the passion behind it.”
For the first several weeks, Walker said the food truck will sell only tacos and ice cream as the menu gets more developed.
“We have a couple of things that we’re trying to put on the menu that are more kind of classic Noonies type stuff” like hamburgers and hotdogs, he said.
A full selection of frozen ice cream will also be present in coolers.
“We’re trying to make sure everything gets made quick. Our hope is that we can almost do it like a drive-thru, where you can come and pick it up and keep going,” he said.
The Walker children decided to go with tacos because they enjoy Mexican food as a family and have a heritage that connects to it.
“We also like hamburgers, chicken and fries, and things like that, but we wanted to make sure we had a go-to thing first,” he said.
While the original idea was to just be open on Tuesdays to go with the custom of Taco Tuesday, Walker said expanded hours are being considered due to the overwhelmingly positive response from the community.
“There is no place you can get coffee on Sunday mornings right now,” he said, adding a lot of food-based businesses in the county are also closed on Sundays.
Once everything is up and running the business will be mobile. Walker said he and his children have several locations in mind to move the business to, including the old Jamie’s Recycling building near the Wal-Mart in Stuart. Until then, the food truck will stay in the church’s parking lot.
Walker said the business is also thinking about partnering with local groups to do fundraisers on Sundays for local churches for their youth programs.
“The rest of the time it will just be my kids running the business,” he said.
Tacos & Tuesday – TNT will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
For more information, visit Facebook.com/TacosandTuesday-TNT.
