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Red Hook Vendors Are Back: Opening Day 2008 in Photos

Posted by Adam Kuban, July 19, 2008 at 8:00 PM

The Red Hook vendors—some of them—were indeed back today. Six of the dozen or so merchants who make up the full contingent were on hand earlier this afternoon when Serious Eats: New York visited to scope the scene.

Who was back:

• Martinez huaraches
• Vaquero fruits
• Lainez Salvadoran pupusas
• Ceron Columbian
• One of the Guatemalan vendors
• Rojas Ecuadorian ceviche

As we mentioned yesterday, the city forced the vendors to buy trucks or carts to serve from. Photos of those trucks, and a tasty video, after the jump. Or, for quick-and-dirty visitors info, see our Red Hook Vendors Guide.

The Martinez huarache truck was back, on the corner of Bay and Clinton streets, also serving tacos and quesadillas.

The lines were long, and there were two of us—me and Raphael—so we split up and went to separate trucks. Raphael spent 45 minutes in line for the Martinez huarache truck, where he grabbed a huarache ($6), of course, and a couple tacos ($3 each). Quesadillas, which we skipped, were $6.

I went and waited for the Vaquero fruit truck (above) with my eye on the watermelon juice ($3) and elote (grilled corn, $2).

Most of the trucks looked fairly run-of-the-mill, no surprise. Ceron Columbian (above left) adorned its truck with the Colombian flag, alerting in-the-know fans to the grilled meats on offer there. The line for pupusas at Lainez Salvadoran (above right) was the longest; we didn't even attempt it. Next week, folks. Next week.

Some of the new digs stood out. The Vaquero fruit truck (above left) had painted flames, likely leftover from the former owner, whose name, Brenda Lee Taqueria, was still emblazoned on the rig. And the Rojas Ecuadorian ceviche stand was in a cute little trailer, with its familiar sandwich-board sign on the sidewalk out front.

One of the two Guatemalan places (above) was back, but I'm not sure which one.

NY1 was there, as were a handful of shutterbugs.

But I think we got the best footage of the day, with this video of one of the women at the Vaquero truck making an elote:

Bonus Outtake Photos

I took too many photos to deal with outputting and compressing for this post. Here's a slideshow to peep.

2 Comments | Tags: Brooklyn, pan-American, Red Hook, Red Hook ball fields, Red Hook vendors, soccer tacos, street vendors