Food truck row at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach has something for everyone — including, if you’re an LBCC culinary arts student, work experience.
That’s right, Long Beach City College’s culinary arts program debuted its food truck at the Grand Prix this weejend, offering up banh mi, a Vietnamese sandwich typically served on a baguette. It’s a relatively simple dish for students to make, but is also a different type of fare than what’s usually on offer at festival-like events.
“We just wanted to make something simple so that the students can have a feel for how it is to actually work on a food truck,” said Alex Lopez, a former LBCC culinary program student who now helps teach classes. “It also gets them used to working with people, especially in a small space, and interacting with customers.”
Long Beach City College offers multiple career technical education programs that provide students with academic and technical skills, knowledge and training necessary for careers, such as hospitality management and, of course, culinary arts.
The concept of the food truck was to have LBCC culinary program students get real work experience. But making that idea into a reality was no easy task. It took chef Haley Nguyen, the department head of culinary arts at LBCC, four years to get the idea up and running, with the help of other LBCC faculty and staff as well.
“We have a great program at Long Beach City College from hospitality to culinary, and it feels amazing to bring this concept into reality,” Juan Herrera, a staff member at LBCC who helped supervise the students this weekend, making sure the truck ran smoothly, said on Saturday afternoon, April 20. “It’s also an opportunity to promote our CTE programs.”
Former students of LBCC’s culinary program were coming up to the truck this weekend, buying a sandwich and sharing with current students what they’re journey has been like since graduating the program, Herrera said. This has further encouraged the students volunteering at the truck, he said.
“I’ve been able to learn about food trucks and that growing business and it’s just been cool to be around this event as well and see the races,” said Adam Maley, an LBCC student in the hospitality management program. “It’s been a lot of fun so far.”
The students have been making banh mi with three choices of protein – pork, chicken or vegetarian. The protein is served on fresh baguettes the students also baked.
“We thought we should do something different,” Lopez, who graduated from the culinary arts program in 2022, said, “because everyone else is making burgers, hot dogs, and we wanted to offer something refreshing.”
Customers were impressed with how fast the service was — and complemented the food. They also thought that the food truck being operated by students was an interesting concept.
“It’s good and very yummy,” said 10-year-old Jordan Chu, from Redlands.
“Coming from a 10-year-old, that means a lot,” said his mother, Vanessa Vargas.
“Normally, we like these sandwiches and we walked in and my husband said we should get some,” Vargas added. “They looked delicious and we’re excited to try them. That’s amazing the students are making them.”
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For Jennica Magarro, this semester is her first time in the program — as well as her first time at the Grand Prix.
“I’ve always loved cooking,” she said. “I kind of inherited that love of cooking from my mom, she taught me everything that I know.
“I think this is an amazing opportunity for students,” Magarro added about being part of the food truck. “It’s a really great volunteering opportunity and if you were interested in opening your own food truck one day, you would definitely have a lot of takeaways from this experience.”
