Serving his famous Cuban sandwich in his vintage ’67 GMC food truck, Tom Boggs, owner of Old Souls Food Truck, is happy to serve the folks of East Texas.
“My dream is that we would have three or four trucks here downtown on a weekend, so that it would be a place people would want to come,” Boggs said. “My hope is not in getting us more business — that would be a byproduct of what we do. My hope is to draw people to downtown Lufkin because it’s a neat place to hang out.”
Boggs started cooking at the age of 5 when his mother pulled up a chair to the kitchen counter and had him cook with her. As he continued to learn how to cook, he worked in different restaurants over the years and cooking became his passion.
Years later, a friend came to Boggs with the idea to start a brick mortar restaurant. After some thought, Boggs came up with the idea to start a food truck business instead. He looked around at different trucks and found his current classic.
“The truck, she has some character,” he said. “At some point it belonged to the Salvation Army and was a disaster response truck.”
In the beginning, Boggs served Korean barbecue tacos but then started looking for different alternatives. That’s when he came across the Cuban sandwich.
“I love Cuban sandwiches, and to me it’s one of the best sandwiches in the world,” he said. “The secret is in the work that goes into making the pork ready. It takes overnight marinating in the special marinade, 10 hours slow roasting so it becomes tender enough, and then the varying of all the ingredients together. So when you put it on the grill and press it, you create something that is a totally different taste.”
The Cuban sandwich is a staple item on the truck, with additional items changing each week, such as beer-braised carnitas tacos and yakitori. He will be bringing back his delicious soups with the colder weather this fall.
Visit Old Souls on Thursdays and Fridays from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. across from A Furniture Fetish on Shepherd Street; on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, the truck is stationed next to the Big Thicket Brewery from 5-9 p.m.
“What I really enjoy is the relationships I get to form with customers,” Boggs said. “Like my friend Ray said, ‘Food’s not food until someone eats it.’ What I’m making, I’m making out of my own passion. Loving food, but it’s not the food itself; it’s a place for someone to have a connection. Hence the desire for what we are doing is to create a meeting point where people can have relationships.”
For more information, visit Old Souls’ Facebook page by searching Old Souls Food Truck.