IRVING PARK — The coronavirus pandemic isn’t stopping the Snix Snacks food truck from opening for the season Wednesday at Independence Park.
Owners Willie and Maria Colón alerted 20 of their most loyal customers via text message Tuesday night to say they’d be open at their usual spot in the northwest corner of the park for pickup deliveries only. The park is located at Irving Park Road and Spaulding Avenue in the Irving Park neighborhood.
“We cook our food like it’s for our family. Our customers have been reaching out to us saying they miss our food so we decided to still open for the season despite everything happening,” Maria Colón said.
The food truck will be open from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
“Please keep a lookout on days and times of when we will be open as we are going to see how busy we are through the end of this week and adjust our hours if we need to,” Maria Colón said. “The best place to check our latest hours is our Facebook page.”
This will be the seventh season for the business, which is only open seven months out of the year. Snix Snacks’ menu is a combination of Caribbean and American street food like Chicago style hot dogs, jibaritos, hamburgers, platanos maduros and more.
“We are encouraging all our customers to place phone orders and continue practicing social distancing while we’re open,” Maria Colón said. “We don’t have a website outside of our Facebook and don’t have the ability to accept online orders. We’re going to have all our windows closed while we work in the food truck as a safety precaution so the only way to order is to call our cell phones.”
Customers can call Maria Colón at 773-537-8706 or Willie Colón at 773-580-7908 to place an order.
“Our businesses is just the two of us so if we don’t pick up it’s because we are busy preparing orders. But leave us a message and we will call you back right away when we have a moment,” Maria Colón said. “People who walk up to order should call too. The park district gave us permission to open but we still want to have people practice social distancing.”
For walkup customers, the couple is asking people to either patiently wait in their car or stand away from the truck and six feet from other people while their food is prepared for a no-contact pickup.
“We really don’t know what to expect when we open for the first time this season but we’ve heard people are excited for us to come back. I’m still on my phone trying to get the word out to all our regular customers about being open Wednesday,” she said.
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