Strolling around our fair city these days, I’m often reminded of Robert Frost and his whole “do good fences make good neighbors” question and coming to the conclusion: Nope. The fences that have been sprouting up around me lately are tall and black and severe. You can’t see past them, and if you’re inside of them you probably can’t see out. If you live next door and you’ve erected one of those iron monstrosities, your neighbors will never be able to rob you, sure, but they’ll never get to know you either. It’s a problem that spans a space of more than just a few blocks: Fences and offenses are going up around the world. Megalomaniacal leaders are launching drones and bombs and stealing other megalomaniacal leaders. Hostility comes from not knowing, from “othering,” and strangers will stay strange if you never take the chance to meet them.
In stark contrast, Vaco House, a Venezuelan food truck tucked behind Quack’s in Hyde Park, feels cozy and familiar. On a winter Wednesday morning in what’s arguably one of Austin’s most adorable – and pricey – neighborhoods (Cheese shops! Colorful day cares! Organic produce!), they were open and smiling and feeding all manner of folks: bundled-up toddlers and bouncing babies and excited dogs and yoga-pantsed chatterers. Food trucks with chugging generators aren’t usually the most inviting places to hang out, but this one is: Groups of families and friends congregate there, hugs are given, pastelitos shared. They’ve got three dedicated picnic tables in their (theoretically) pay-to-park lot, and another group of seats on 43rd. If you don’t feel like sticking around, they do a brisk to-go business; several eager-faced walkers approached the counter and were handed large bags of steaming food. Though food trucks are prone to moving locales and Vaco House has only been open since fall, they already have regulars.
Vaco’s handmade fare – they’re rightfully proud of their arepa dough – arrives with a small army of pastel sauces in squeezy bottles: the usual garlic aioli and chipotle but also zippy orange cheese “fritz” and sweet yellow corn sauce. Our ham and cheese empanada ($3.99) was smallish and mild, but the “disruptive pavilion bowl” ($11.95) was filling and full of goodness: a mound of shredded beef, caramelized plantain chunks, and beans. I added spring mix to mine, a mistake; I’ve never quibbled with my lettuces being too long and stringy, but these were, and they interfered with my more gluttonous mouthfuls.
Vaco’s plain white rice is perfectly cooked and necessary; since there are no other carbs to shove into the bowl, you need a base holding it all together, and you need something upon which to squirt those snazzy sauces. In the evenings, Vaco features an $8.50 hot dog “especial,” topped with potato chips, cheese, corn, and bacon, which is tricky to eat but fun to look at.
Portions at the truck are decent, and the food arrives hot and fresh and fairly fast (if they say five minutes, that means 10; take off your coat and stay awhile). But cheese/shredded beef/chicken mainstays tucked inside various iterations of corn are by no means uncommon in this town, and aren’t enough to keep a place in business, so Vaco clearly has something else going on to be snagging their 5-star reviews. At first I figured it must be their cute wood-paneled food truck, adorned with plants, string lights, and slightly aggressive, CrossFitty slogans (“healthy done the hard way”; “flavor without apology”). Then I suspected their sexy, masterful Instagram account, featuring images of dripping queso and slick manicured hands snatching at mozzarella sticks. Or was it their consideration of dietary restrictions, their gluten-free and vegan offerings, or perhaps their golden empanadas filled with self-described “chaos”? After another visit, I’d cracked the code: It’s their Colombian coffee. It’s fantastic.
The Coco Loco is topped with cold foam and toasted coconut and not too sugary. The Triple Sin is a cinnamon bomb of zingy happiness. Their Woke Tiramisu is strong and tastes like its namesake. Iced coffees, priced at around $6, come in smoky to-go cups with a nice round tactile feel (or they did the first time I went; not the second). If you’re already woke and/or awake, their refreshing papelón con limón, made with caramelly sugarcane, is the exact correct blend of sweet and sour.
In perhaps a slight translation glitch (of which there are more than a few at Vaco), a sticker on their to-go lids reads: “If your vibe is elite, sign here,” with a blank in which the server can presumably write your name if things get busy. I’m not sure how elite my vibe is (wait, yes I am: not very) but I appreciated puzzling that out and the fact that the super-cheerful window guy bothered to write “THANK YOU!” on each of our labels in fresh Sharpie. I do wish there had been a clearly marked recycling option (or even an unclearly marked one) for said cups, but supposedly plastics aren’t being recycled anyway, so okay, I feel somewhat mollified re: tossing everything into the one trash can.
Does eating at Vaco House make up for the fact that we’ve been stealing Venezuela’s oil and targeting their fishing boats? Of course not, though one suspects that if our country’s officials spent more time at local food trucks and less time holed up in their golden offices eating fast food and drinking Diet Cokes, they’d be better people (with actual elite vibes) – but that’s the whole chicken-egg problem. In any case, Vaco House is our neighbor now, and they’re excited to share their Venezuelan/Colombian food and culture with us. Thank goodness those tasty arepas are oozing with cheese and those cold foam coffees are so delightfully potent.
This article appears in January 30 • 2026.