Imagine it’s the hottest part of July in south western Kentucky, where the summer heat brings with it a sweater of humidity.
It’s 1 o’clock in the afternoon. You and one other person — your significant other, your ride-or-die — own a notable, successful food truck. There’s a lunch rush. Online and walk-up orders seem unceasing.
A brand-new generator, one responsible for drawing the heat of the trailer, keeps clicking out of sync. Suddenly, somehow, a heat-advised afternoon brings reprieve from a mobile kitchen — one capable of dreaming and crafting cuisine from the Caribbean diaspora.
The lunch rush fades. A pair of smiles come into focus. There’s an unadulterated joy. There’s satisfaction.
Just another Thursday for Zirconia and Desaepa Vansauwa, a pair of Hopkinsville High School graduates — who only crossed paths and connected emotionally and economically later in life.
Owners of Vansauwa’s Tacos & Vegan Eats since 2018 and married for the past four years, their business has only continued to grow since a December 2023 fire did considerable damage to their main truck.
They have since been named 2024 Grand Champion as Kentucky’s No. 1 Food Truck, were voted the 2024 Top International Food Truck in the Middle Tennessee Food Truck Festival, and have a crazy, crazy slate planned for late summer and early fall.
Desaepa said he always wanted to work for himself and his family, where they could control their decisions and ideas, and make food that “everybody could culturally eat.”
His famous jerk chicken is where this all got started, but for him, it’s more.
While he doesn’t know his roots specifically because “slavery interrupted it,” Zirconia’s mother is Christian County Magistrate Magaline Ferguson, and her father, Roger, is Barbadian.
She knows where she’s from, and she loves to reflect such in her cooking.
One of the more unique facts about their business is that, as of Thursday evening, they didn’t have a single negative review on their Facebook. Out of 108 comments, they own a sterling 100% recommendation rating.
They make everyone happy, and Desaepa knows why. It’s the “first-bite” test: a five-part customer service process that pays dividends.
The Vansauwa’s have plenty on the calendar between now, the fall and the future.
From 5-9 PM August 8 and noon to 5 PM August 9, the Fifth Annual Food Festival and “Taste of the Town” — an event they started in 2021— will be in Founders Square with 15-to-20 trucks, live music and bounce houses.
They will once again appear at Hopkinsville’s “Summer Salute,” before making appearances at Louisville’s “World Fest,” Nashville’s “African Street Festival” and Paducah’s “Barbecue On The River” — where they plan to compete against others using their signature sauces and some kind of jerk meat.
Already busy with event catering, and their two children, the duo said there has been loose, but serious, talk of further expansion and franchising — which could look like the acquisition of a liquor license, new themed trucks, a brick-and-mortar location, or something entirely different.
Whatever the venture is, the only thing that truly matters to them is being together.
Their Caribbean-inspired Tacos and Cuisine includes, but is not limited to:
+ Anguilla
+ Antigua and Barbuda
+ Aruba
+ Bahamas
+ Barbados
+ British Virgin Islands
+ Cayman Islands
+ Cuba
+ Dominica
+ Dominican Republic
+ Grenada
+ Guadeloupe
+ Haiti
+ Jamaica
+ Martinique
+ Montserrat
+ Navassa Island
+ Netherlands Antilles
+ Puerto Rico
+ Saint Barthelemy
+ Saint Kitts and Nevis
+ Saint Lucia
+ Saint Martin
+ Saint Vincent and Grenadines
+ Trinidad and Tobago
+ Turks and Caicos Islands
+ United States Virgin Islands
