Miss Milolo’s to reopen Thursday

After three months of being shut down, Miss Milolo Cuisine’s food truck is getting ready to open back up on Thursday.

“My customers, I love them, I appreciate them,” says Sandra Diba. Diba owns and operates the food truck with her husband Villard.

“If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be standing here in the first place.”

The Diba’s run the only African food truck in Lexington, but their business was put on pause when their truck caught on fire back in May.

“Why does this have to happen to me? What did I do?” Diba said, reliving the moment. “At some point, I was like, maybe I should just give up”

Yet, she did not let the negativity get to her. After all, she has been through much worse. Sandra tells me how her and her husband were hit by an 18-wheeler about two years ago and spent about a month in the ICU.

“I thought that my life was over,” she said.

This life-threatening moment allowed the Diba’s to put this situation into perspective.

Yes, it is not an ideal situation to have your place of work be destroyed, but they made the best out of the situation. They took their talents to the Greater Gardenside Market on Wednesdays, to sell the same food she would have been selling anyway.

“When something happens, God always opens another door. When one closes, another opens,” Diba said.

They also took these past few months to update their menu.

“If the food truck didn’t burn, I don’t think I was going to come up with the Shawarma,” she added.

The Shawarma dish she is referring to is a steak -or other meat-, with potatoes, wrapped in a tortilla.

The incident also allowed the Diba’s to upgrade their equipment, everything from getting a better grill, to an updated deep fryer.

While this is very exciting for the couple, the new bells and whistles aren’t for her, but they are for her customers.

“I miss them coming by some of them became family. They are no longer a customer,” she concluded.