To help combat rumbling tummies as you take in the sights and sounds of Austin, South by Southwest has you covered. With a craving in your belly and a passion for exceptional food in your heart, head on over to the SouthBites Trailer Park on Driskill Street, where you can spend a couple bucks on some of Austin’s finest food trucks. Here are just a few of the trucks you can check out.
Lick Honest Ice Cream
Inspired by genuine ice cream crafting methods, founders Anthony Sobotik and Chad Palmatier found themselves in the midst of Austin, driven to create the best ice cream possible from scratch and with local ingredients. The variety of fresh produce grown in the Austin area assured founders Sobotik and Palmatier that there had to be a market for their product.
“We make everything from scratch,” said Diana Vassar, Lick Honest marketing and sales director. “And we work alongside local vendors.”
For SouthBites particularly, Lick Honest has a selection of flavors new and old.
“We wanted an accessible selection for those who may be from out of town,” Vassar said. “But we also wanted a great representation of Texas as well.”
A few of the flavors to look out for are Fresh Mint and Chocolate Chip, as well as Tequila Lime Pie made with locally produced Dulce Vida tequila.
For individuals wanting to give Lick Honest an honest shot, but also looking to beat the crowds, brick and mortar Lick Honest shops are located on South Lamar, Burnet and Mueller.
Noble Sandwich Company
Another face you may or may not recognize in the SouthBites Trailer Park is Noble Sandwich Company. Brandon Martinez and John Bates have owned and cooked up craft sandwiches at Noble’s since 2010 and pride themselves in making as much as they can from scratch.
Martinez said the inspiration for this particular sandwich restaurant came to him and Bates when they took a good look at Austin and saw that the city was missing a sandwich joint that satisfied their tastes.
“There (weren’t) a lot of places that offered what I wanted in a sandwich,” Martinez said. “So I wanted to do my own thing.”
Noble prides themselves in serving high-quality ingredients with great cooking and hospitality. During the festival, they’re most excited to offer a new 18-hour smoked BBQ pork sandwich.
Tamale Addiction
What would Austin’s food scene be without authentic Mexican food with a twist? Since 2010, owners Adrian Paredes and Mariana Ibanez have made tamales from scratch with family recipes and traditional practices while only utilizing organic ingredients that allow all of their tamales to be gluten-free.
“When we moved to Austin, we decided to start a restaurant,” Paredes said. “We started with making desserts, but it didn’t work out because the Texas weather in (the) summer is too harsh.”
This led them to their next endeavor: flautas. While it wasn’t the end goal, Paredes said it led them to meet people that would help them along the way.
“From some sort of destiny we met a woman who runs the downtown farmers’ market,” Paredes said. “They didn’t have any space for flautas, but when a tamale vendor left the farmers market, we were offered the job to make tamales.”
And thus Tamale Addiction was born. During SXSW they’ll be offering four of their most popular options including pork, chicken, vegetarian black bean and goat cheese, and vegan spinach and caramelized onions.”
