Empanada Guy Bringing His Food Truck To Ocean County

BRICK, NJ -- Ocean County fans of The Empanada Guy should soon be able to head to Brick to get their hands -- and mouths -- on the popular food truck’s offerings.

Carlos Serrano, owner of The Empanada Guy, announced the move on Facebook Wednesday:

“Brick Twp has opened their arms to Empanada Guy!!!!! Our new permanent location will be at Ocean Ice Palace, 197 Chambersbridge Road,” Serrano said, adding he expects the truck to be in the spot by Feb. 1.

The Empanada Guy has become a national name thanks to Serrano’s appearances on shows like Lifetime’s ”Supermarket Superstar” and the Food Network’s “Beat Bobby Flay.” The company just recently bought its eighth truck, and he has a restaurant in Freehold. Six of the trucks have permanent locations they set up at every day to serve customers, most of them in Mercer and Middlesex counties.

Joanne Bergin, Brick Township administrator, confirmed that Serrano has applied for a mobile food vendor license, adding that it is in process. The mobile food vendor license allows trucks to park in one location for a maximum of 12 hours, she said. The process takes a couple of weeks and is handled through the township clerk’s office, “so he should be all set for February 1,” Bergin said.

Serrano hinted at the plan to set up in Ocean County last week with a Facebook post announcing he’d received a certified letter “from a great South Jersey town that wants Empanada Guy truck parked permanently.”

“I’m excited to say the least. But I’m also proud because it’s a testament to how communities are realizing that our trucks can be an asset to their town,” he said in the Jan. 9 post. “In the end we’re only gonna go where we’re wanted.”

That was in reference to the rebuff he received from Toms River officials last year when he went before the Toms River Township Council to ask them to change a 1973 ordinance that limits mobile food vendors to 30 minutes in a single location.

Toms River Township Clerk J. Mark Mutter said that ordinance came about because small business owners asked the government of then-Dover Township to address the issue of itinerant food trucks, which were viewed as competing unfairly because they did not have the same overhead costs of a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

Mutter said Toms River has had to actively enforce the ordinance as recently as last spring, when a vendor set up right across the street from Capone’s.

Serrano said the truck that currently goes to Port Reading will be shifted to Brick.