Cambodian vendors carve out niche in growing Twin Cities food truck scene

Cambodian food truck vendors are carving out a place in the Twin Cities food scene — and whetting the appetite of local foodies for a cuisine less familiar than its Lao and Thai neighbors.

Drawn by the low startup costs, flexible work hours and the popularity of street fairs like the Little Mekong Night Market and the Asia Street Food Night Market , vendors are testing the market for new foods, like unusual egg rolls or drinks based on sugarcane.

Chamnap Nay opened Mrs. Eggroll during the pandemic as a fundraising vehicle. She’s now selling thousands of egg rolls at events and online.

Kathy Rouen, who launched her food truck Khmer Cuisine three years ago, said she wants to introduce Cambodian food to more Twin Cities residents. She has encouraged others in her community to start food trucks.

“I wanted to show Cambodian food to different cultures,” she said.

And Hannah Peterson, founder of Shoo-Ga Cane Juice Bar & Eatery , has carved out a niche with sugarcane-based beverages.

Fundraiser leads to a business

When Nay moved to Minnesota from Cambodia in 2012, she was looking for some way to give back to her new home, after being involved with several philanthropic pursuits in Cambodia.

Soon after moving, she founded a program within the International Khmer Assembly, which honors the contributions of Cambodian veterans who served in the Vietnam War, called Operation One Day Smiles. The program provides food and other basic necessities for orphaned children and elders in Cambodia.

“I initiated the idea to sell egg rolls because the company that I was with at the time had an annual fundraiser for the American Heart Association where they had employees participating in making egg rolls and fundraising,” Nay said.

She got 100 of her coworkers to participate in her fundraiser, which supported the One Day Smiles program. Her fundraiser took the top prize, which was a $30,000 grant from her company and a matching grant from Hubbard Broadcasting.

“With that $30,000, we were able to continue our organization here in St. Paul and then we were able to allocate some to help children in Cambodia and then also build the first Cambodian museum in St. Paul,” Nay said.

That was when Mrs. Eggroll was born.

“We make egg rolls to sell and continue to fund the small projects that we have in Cambodia,” Nay said.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic forced her to cut back, she is hoping to get her business back to full operation again. Her team consists of volunteers who help make egg rolls and oversee business operations.

Nay and her volunteers work full-time jobs, which has been a challenge in restarting operations.

“We’re looking for other alternatives by partnering with retail stores or restaurants to sell our product at their location and have customers pick up their orders,” Nay said.

Nay attends several Twin Cities events over the summer and also sells egg rolls online. She said she always looks to the future when planning out how many egg rolls to make and spends much of her weekends making egg rolls for customers and pre-making them for upcoming events.

Customers can select flavors ranging from chicken to vegetable egg rolls to apple pie-flavored egg rolls to pepperoni and cheese egg rolls.

“Our egg rolls are small, which is what differentiates us from other vendors,” Nay said. “In each event, we sell about 3,000 to 5,000 egg rolls.”

An early adopter

When Rouen launched Khmer Cuisine with her husband, Hoeun Hut, they were one of the first Cambodian vendors on the Twin Cities food truck scene.

Khmer Cuisine serves Cambodian dishes like lemongrass beef and chicken and sour soup, as well as pan-Asian mainstays including pad Thai, fried rice and egg rolls.

The truck has been parked for much of the summer at Fleet Farm in Brooklyn Park or off White Bear Avenue in St. Paul allowing Roeun to attract a loyal clientele. She also attends food festivals.

“[Customers will] come again and order the same food, and I’m so happy when people say the food is delicious and tastes good and they come again,” Roeun said.

Rouen previously worked for a tailoring business. She now runs the food truck from April to November.

She has encouraged others in the Cambodian community who want to be their own boss to start food trucks. Rouen said it takes about $40,000 to $80,000 to launch a food truck, and the business offers flexible hours, as well as the ability to focus on high-demand locations and weekend events.

“For young kids who want to open a small business, it’s very nice [option],” she said.

The health food influencer

Hannah Peterson, founder of Shoo-Ga Cane Juice Bar & Eatery , wants to provide healthier alternatives for adults and children.

When her kids began playing sports, she began her research on beverages that are good for sports participation.

“Water is the best way to stay hydrated, and they don’t always want to drink water, they want to drink Prime [energy drink] and Gatorade,” Peterson said. “It’s banned in many countries, so I started digging a little bit more into sugarcane.”

Peterson, who is a frequent traveler, said sugarcane is popular in many countries outside of Southeast Asia, such as Egypt, Brazil and Costa Rica.

“There’s all these people from different countries coming up to our truck and saying, ‘This tastes like home, thank you for doing this,’ and it’s such an honor to be able to bring that to so many different countries and people,” Peterson said.

Since Shoo Ga’s sugarcane juice is made with natural ingredients and real fruit, people can drink the juice without feeling any negative health effects, said Peterson.

“Everything that you are putting into your body, [it] can actually process,” Peterson said. “There have been people who have come to the truck and said, ‘I have diabetes, and I am able to drink this and it does not spike my blood sugar.’ To be able to do that for those clients is really amazing for us.”

Shoo Ga’s food truck goes to many parks and farmers’ markets in the Twin Cities area. Peterson said word-of-mouth has led to high demand.

“It’s really, really exciting because we feel good about giving them something that’s healthy and delicious,” Peterson said. “We’ve been getting messages from people from Wisconsin, Texas and California asking us if we can ship our sugarcane juice to them, so it’s been really fun.”

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