by Blake Herzog
When Ursula Chavez launched her Mexican dessert-dispensing food truck Churrolicious in 2021, it quickly became a phenomenon she wanted to build upon.
“We were new in town, we were very tasty, and people would actually stand in the rain, right in the middle of monsoon season,” she says. “That kind of opened our eyes that we’ve got something good here, and we’ve got a lot of buzz. And I was looking around us and the other food trucks around town that tasted yummy, they didn’t really have a social media presence around town, and I wanted to share my buzz.”
This led to the launch two years later of Food Truck Friday, now a fixture at Casa Grande Neon Sign Park at Sacaton Street and Florence Boulevard. Chavez’s and other food trucks, vendors, bouncy castles, face painters and other attractions regularly draw hundreds to the heart of downtown.
“There was nothing in town like Food Truck Friday, and we had been to a bunch of different events around the state, and I was like ‘You know, why don’t we have anything like that for our community?’ You know, a place where people can bring their kids, let them run free … We have games for the kids, cornhole for adults, we have a DJ every Friday. We wanted something for the community to be able to come together,” Chavez says.
After Chavez and her family got all the necessary permits, the events started out at Casa Grande’s downtown Food City, at Florence and 2nd streets, but that didn’t work for long. “We got two Fridays in, and people were pulling into the lot and blocking the entryways, we knew we needed something bigger,” she says.
She connected with Holly Nash, executive director of Casa Grande Mainstreet, and found a roomier home at the neon-tinged park.
“We were able to add string lights to add to the ambiance and jumping castles for the children, we were able to add more food trucks, we were able to add vendors as well, and it continued to really grow,” Chavez says.
‘Our own little environment’
Over the last two years Food Truck Friday has grown into a mainstay for downtown Casa Grande, held most Friday evenings — for specific dates and times check the Casa Grande Food Truck Friday Facebook page. There are some breaks around the holidays and when there’s a major event happening in the city or surrounding communities, so as not to compete with them and allow trucks to serve at those festivities.
Most Fridays include 10 food trucks offering anything from hamburgers and hot dogs to tacos and Asian cuisine. Then there’s another 10 merchandise vendors plus kids’ activities, all adding up to a place people can depend on to shop and eat quality food at outdoor tables or take home for a meal, an option more people avail themselves of in the summer.
“We’re creating our own little environment down there,” Chavez says.
She said Food Truck Friday attracts hundreds on a normal night, and the crowd grows closer to 1,000 for the biggest events, which is also the focus of their civic donations. Churrolicious donates 56% of its proceeds to the community, she says, which reaches people in the form of giveaways on the Fridays on or near these occasions:
- Easter — 200 free Easter baskets
- Back to School — 800 backpacks with supplies, free haircuts for kids
- Halloween — Goodie buckets with candy and games, a costume contest
- Thanksgiving — 70 to 100 free turkeys
- Christmas — Over 400 toys, 100 jackets.
