Students looking for a meal out of a moving van no longer have to trek across the city to experience Austin’s food truck culture.

Rancho Rio Eatery, the most recent addition to Austin’s food truck parks, opened near the corner of 26th and Rio Grande streets at the beginning of the month.

Located in the center of West Campus, Rancho Rio provides many food truck operators with an entrance to the student traffic in the area. The vendors pay rent to the lot owner to park their trucks in that area.

“We were able to jump into the UT scene, which we’d been trying to do for a while,” Jamie Loretta, a worker at Short Bus Subs, said. “When this lot opened up, they asked us to be here and it was a great spot to jump into.”

Loretta said that since Short Bus Subs’ opening, it’s been “slammed” and business has been a lot busier than expected. 

Short Bus Subs has additional food trucks on the Airport and South Congress lots, but Loretta said that since opening this has been, by far, the busiest lot yet.

“We didn’t really know what we were getting into,” she said. “We only had a vague idea of the traffic in this area.” 

The lot itself is open until 2 a.m., but many of the vendors stay open later.

“We were here until 3:15 a.m. last night,” Loretta said.   

Biochemistry sophomore Haley Spotts said she has eaten at the Rancho Rio Eatery twice already with her friends.

“We like it because it’s close and in the middle of everything,” Spotts said. 

Anthropology sophomore Ryan Kober said she likes the different options the lot provides. 

“The food is really good and it’s better than the one on Congress because we can walk here. There are no parking issues,” Kober said. 

Printed on Tuesday, January 22, 2013 as: Food trucks come to West Campus