A decade after opening their food truck, Auckland couple Sarah and Otis Frizzell still love making sweet tacos together.
Sarah and Otis Frizzell operate the Auckland food business The Lucky Taco Photo: Penguin New Zealand
Photo: Penguin New Zealand
The Lucky Taco Cookbook is published by Penguin Books New Zealand.
Sarah (an art director originally from the UK) grew up on classic pot noodles and chip butties, while Otis (a musician and artist) was raised on homegrown produce.
"I always knew the difference between eating crap and eating good food. So when it came to cooking I wanted to cook nice food," he says.
On the couple's honeymoon in Mexico and California, they fell in love with eating fresh tacos. Back home in Auckland later, they couldn't recreate the experience.
"We got home and were like 'yay, let's go for tacos' and we literally couldn't… So we started, in earnest, cooking tacos at home and inviting people round. Some great friends of ours were like 'these are very good…'"
With the idea of opening their own taco truck, Sarah and Otis made a research trip back to the States, where they ate an extreme amount of tacos with famous Los Angeles food critic Bill Esparza.
Connecting with the Mexican families who work in food trucks is an experience Sarah says will stay with her forever.
"When you tell them you work in a truck they just instantly respect the graft 'cause they've all been there," Otis adds.
Back home, family members took a little longer to understand the couple's taco truck concept, with Otis's father (the artist Dick Frizzell) asking 'What? Like the pie carts at the speedway?'
To set The Lucky Taco well apart from pie carts, Otis and Sarah had to have "most beautiful truck", Sarah says.
"We wanted a character truck… but if it's too old it's gonna break down all the time. We wanted some stainless steel to reflect the iconic Cali trucks," adds Otis.
The couple found 'Lucky' – a former tour truck for New Zealand bands The Naked and Famous and The Checks – on TradeMe for $12,000 and spent a whole lot more than that doing it up.
Auckland couple Sarah and Otis Frizzell at work in their food truck The Lucky Taco Photo: The Lucky Taco
Once Lucky was ready to go, Otis and Sarah were able to park up and operate on private property just off Ponsonby Road, thanks to some vacant car parks owned by their friends at the TV production company Flying Fish.
"We wanted to create this buzz… we talked it up so much for so long we really had to be good and fortunately when we did open it was good."
Due to demand for their at-home meal kits, The Lucky Taco thrived during the Covid-19 pandemic, Otis says, yet the gruelling hours took a toll on their team of two.
"All of our friends were playing PlayStation and going on long walks and we were up at 5am shredding cabbage and marinating chicken, it was pretty mental."
The idea of starting a food truck is a "romantic notion", Sarah says, but the reality is not always pretty.
"I wouldn't change a thing, the whole experience has been an experience … but it's incredibly hard and there are times you want to quit."
One secret to The Lucky Taco's success is that she and Otis excel at making its operation look easy.
"That's actually really hard, to make it look like it's easy. There are times it's such a struggle and you don't start a food truck to get rich, you know."
Otis has seen food trucks break up marriages, and feels lucky he and Sarah are able to put in the hard yards together.
"It's quite heartbreaking because [couples have this romantic dream of [starting a food truck] but the work is too hard, it's too insular, maybe they spend too much time together and it just crumbles and it's heartbreaking to see.
"Fortunately, we're a good team so we manage to work together and be married together… The important thing for me to know is that Sarah is the boss in The Lucky Taco… with The Lucky Taco, she's the boss."
