One Tampa Bay food truck combines a trippy style with funnel cakes and fried chicken. Because you guessed it — everything is "better in batter."
It's the type of food that's hard to come by unless you're at a carnival or fair. Which, coincidentally, the owner has special insight into.
Zachary Joseph is a fourth-generation carny and said he's been working at carnivals since he was 5. But it wasn't until 2019 when he opened up the Funnel Vision food truck with a simple goal: "bring foodie back to food trucks."
"To me, I think a food truck is something that you just can't get anywhere else, or it's unique," Joseph added.
And unique it is.
Funnel Vision has your original type of funnel cake, and of course, twists on the formula, such as strawberry shortcake, cookies and cream or bananas foster. They also sell fried chicken and chicken sandwiches. You can even swap out the buns for a pair of mini funnel cakes.
"You have high blood sugar or you need to lose a couple pounds, this is not the food truck. At the end of the day, when you're having a cheat day, you're coming to Funnel Vision."
Funnel Vision calls itself a naughty kitchen because of this.
"It's not your place to go on a diet, so you're gonna have a little fun with it. You're gonna get a little weird, you get a little sloppy with it, little dirty with it," he described.
Joseph said the first couple of years running Funnel Vision were tough. His dad worked in the truck for free for two years. Then you have the whole COVID-19 pandemic — you might have heard of it — and it threw even more complications his way.
But since he stayed the course, he's been able to find a strong customer base at events he's a big fan of, such as electronic dance music and dubstep festivals.
"I enjoy EDM and bass music myself. I am the customer. So when they come up to our truck, we're blasting dubstep, we're headbanging, we're all having a good time," Joseph said. "There's some other food stands out there, and they ain't got no music playing, or they just don't look part of the scene."
He said some other food trucks don't have the same vibe.
"We're wearing bucket hats with sprouts and artist merch, and we're in here cooking chicken. We're staying up till 3 a.m., and we're yelling at people," he described.
One look at the truck and you could tell it's fit for that scene. The outside is black, white, pink and yellow with a trippy dinosaur wearing sunglasses and his tongue hanging out.
Tried some out, and it was coated in sugar with cinnamon sugar on top of it and caramel. It's the type of food where you don't even say something after one bite — you just go straight to the second bite.
My colleague Warren Buchholz came with me and gave the Bang Bang Chicken a try. It was his first time eating a piece of chicken since 2012.
"Wow, I'm converted," he said.
Joseph said there are a lot of hard parts about running a food truck. The thermostat in the truck broke after it got hotter than 140 degrees. Also, someone recently ran into them and dented an entire side. Heads up, repairing a food truck is much more complicated than your normal car.
But despite the troubles, Joseph said Funnel Vision is his passion.
"My whole goal was, if you knew one food truck, I wanted it to be Funnel Vision. So I tell everybody, I force it on people. Like, Funnel Vision. Check us out. Eat our chicken," he said.
Joseph posts Funnel Vision's location schedule on its website. If you want to give the fried goodness a taste for yourself, it's also on Instagram and Facebook.
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