For nearly three years, the Tru Jamaica food truck was the whole business. When an electrical fire closed our dining room in December 2022, the truck is how Waco kept eating our food — and how our family kept going.
Why we started the truck
When the fire closed our dining room, we had a choice: wait, or keep cooking. Waiting meant losing our staff, our customers, and our momentum. So we moved the kitchen onto wheels. The truck kept our family working and kept us connected to the people who'd been with us since day one — and before long it became a familiar sight around Baylor's campus.
What cooking in a truck is like
A food truck kitchen is small, hot, and unforgiving. Every item has a place. Oxtail and Curry Goat still take hours, so a lot of the work happens before the truck ever leaves. Then it's a fast, tight service where every minute counts.
It taught us a lot about planning, and those lessons made the restaurant kitchen run better when we reopened.
The community carried us
We didn't do it alone. We'd put everything into this corner of East Waco — back in 2017 I cashed out my 401(k) to help buy the building on Taylor Street, three palm trees and all. After the fire, Waco gave it back. The Waco Foundation helped us keep catering through the rebuild, Baylor's law school and basketball team booked us, and the artist Ira Watkins even touched up our mural in exchange for a plate of Oxtail. That's the kind of place East Waco is.
What the truck does now
With the restaurant open again, the truck lets us bring Tru Jamaica to places the restaurant can't reach, such as:
- Campus and community events
- Festivals and markets
- Private parties and corporate events
What it means to us
My father learned to cook from his grandmother, and he passed just before we came to Waco. Cooking his food from a truck window — and now from our own kitchen again — is how we keep him with us.
When we finally got close to reopening, a reporter asked how it felt. I told them it was like getting a new toy: relief, yes, but more than anything, joy. We believe God doesn't want us to fail — and when we say us, we mean everybody.
How to find it
Where the truck is changes week to week. We post locations on Instagram and Facebook at @trujamaica and TruJamaicaWaco.
Book the truck
Want the truck at your event? Send us a catering request and mention the truck.
Helping other trucks
We know how hard it is to start a food truck. That's one reason we run a licensed commissary kitchen, giving other mobile vendors in Waco a compliant place to prep and store their food.
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