You know how much I love El Caribe’s divine arepas, right? I became addicted to these delicious little pockets of goodness at last summer’s farmers markets where Becki and Igor prepped them in a makeshift kitchen comprised primarily of camping cookware and a crockpot. While it was amazing to watch them create such great food with such a basic kitchen, I can’t say I’m sad to report that they’ll never have to make do with makeshift again. After months of waiting and a ton of work, El Caribe will be rolling out in their pretty new truck, Arepita, this weekend!
Chuck Courter, who has become the go to man for Denver street food vendors in need of a food truck conversion, has been working on El Caribe’s compressed natural gas truck for a few months now and it is ready to roll. I visited Chuck’s shop a few weeks back and took a peek at Arepita and she is loaded with one hell of a professional kitchen. Becki used it to cook for some friends a couple days ago and wrote me saying “I have to tell you – that the kitchen rocks!” Arepita is definitely a beauty on the inside, and is soon to be just as pretty on the outside. Big Mike, Igor’s tattoo artist from the White Lotus tattoo shop, is still in the process of wrapping up the paint job which will be a reproduction of the gorgeous mural shown above. You can catch some videos of Big Mike at work on the truck on El Caribe’s YouTube channel.
Like kids on Christmas morning, though, Becki and Igor are about to burst with excitement and can’t sit still a minute longer. Even though the paint job isn’t 100% finished, they’re taking her out for a spin this weekend.
Becki tells me they’ll be out as much as possible in the coming weeks, which tickles me pink! Here are a few places you can catch them and check out their sweet new ride:
- Friday/Saturday 2-6pm at Denver Urban Homesteading at 200 Santa Fe
- Santa Fe Arts District First Friday on April 1 (no joke!)
- Saturday April 2 at the Fillmore on Colfax for the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls bout (El Caribe is a sponsor!)
Get out there and get you some arepas, people, and welcome this pretty new truck to the Denver street food scene!