Everyone knows it’s the tens of thousands of students, faculty and staff that keep Temple buzzing from morning to night. But if you look past them—quite literally past the crowds at lunchtime—and see where they’re gathering, you’ll undoubtedly see food trucks. In other words, you’ll see what helps keep them going.
Since the 1960s, food trucks have helped define Temple’s food culture fabric. The trucks are stationary throughout the day and are reliable options for a student on the run, a professor wrapping up the day, a researcher on break from the lab.
Some of the food trucks are staples, having kept their wheels put through years of transformative campus growth around them. Others are new to the game; some have been opened by alumni who saw business opportunities before they completed their studies. All help fill the stomach of what is evidently one hungry campus.
The food trucks offer a bit of it all: Cheesesteaks and coffee. Halal and hamburgers. Bibimbap and burritos. Smoothies and saag paneer. At more than three dozen strong, they together constitute what some might consider a sort of tasting menu of the world. Fitting for a university that thinks on the same scale.