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Food

What It's Like Inside the Whole Foods Food Truck Test Kitchen

On the latest episode of 'MUNCHIES: The Podcast', we visit some old and new Austin food truck vendors and check out the Whole Foods food truck test kitchen.
Photo via Flickr user Alaina McDavid

Unless you've been living under a rock lately, Austin restaurants like Franklin Barbecue have been making waves in the national food scene. But on the latest episode of 'MUNCHIES: The Podcast', we're exploring the longstanding titan of Austin's thriving culinary map: food trucks.

It's a great way to open a pop-up a restaurant on wheels, incubate a business, and eventually move to a brick and mortar if it gets popular. Plus, food trucks have become a sort of mascot for the city. Between 2006 and 2012, Travis County records showed that the number of food trailers nearly doubled.

This past February, Whole Foods made a huge announcement: it would open its very first food truck test kitchen. This is huge news, and a system that will impact its nationwide stores with the help of its Austin patrons.

To kick things off on this episode, I sat down with Momofuku alum and Global Vice-President of culinary and hospitality at Whole Foods, Tien Ho, who dreamt up the concept to get his thoughts on how Austin food trucks are influencing the American palate, and why this model is changing their business. Then, I headed over to two of the city's greatest food trucks—one old, one new—to get their impressions on how these establishments have helped put Austin on the national food scene.

Get into the vibe, download the podcast, and tell your friends to do the same. And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to MUNCHIES: The Podcast on iTunes and Soundcloudif you feel like it. Check back in two weeks for the next episode, when we connect with the Defontes over barbecue.