Mother Road grub

Get your food truck fix with Fuel 66

Tulsans love their food trucks and each year welcome at least a dozen new mobile eateries. Aside from Food Truck Wednesdays at Guthrie Green, trucks have largely lacked a place to regularly set up shop (save for the occasional agreement with a kind business owner—Fur Shop and Lone Wolf, for instance). Because of this, tracking down a favorite food truck can be difficult for its fans. Now, several business owners are bridging that gap with Tulsa’s first food truck court and biergarten on Route 66. 

Robert Carnoske and Chad Wilcox, owners of MASA food truck, and J.L. Lewis, owner of the former Leon’s on Brookside, along with investors Chris and Elizabeth Ellison, have combined forces to outfit an old Route 66 gas station as a food truck paradise: Fuel 66, which just opened this week. 

Located on E. 11th Street between S. Atlanta Ave. and Lewis Place, Fuel 66 bridges the gap between TU and downtown. Surrounded by a fence line, the vintage gas station “yard” can accommodate three to four trucks and has picnic tables with umbrellas, fire pits, games, a small stage, and indoor restrooms. A huge awning with a long, radiant heater tucked inside extends from one side of the building. A second awning will be built soon. The patio area under the awning can be enclosed on colder days so the park can remain open year-round.

Housed inside the repurposed gas station, 45 bar stools surround a bar top constructed from the flooring of the old Rose Bowl Lanes, and a long wooden community table with chairs fills the middle of the room. The full bar will have up to 15 regional, national, and international beers on tap along with cocktails and a selection of canned beers and wines. Two service windows on either side of the bar allow easy service for guests seated outside. 

Carnoske has the first month of trucks scheduled and plans on rotating different trucks throughout each month.

“To keep it from getting stale, I’m trying to mix them up as much as possible, bringing some new ones into the fold,” he said. “And now trucks will have a place they can be two or three time a month that’s a cool setting. Their customers are going to love it as much as they love the food truck.”

The calendar will be out a month or so in advance so food truck fanatics can plan accordingly. The group is hoping to draw more folks out to this historic strip of road.

“We’re really playing hard on Route 66. You wouldn’t believe the number of people travelling it, but here in Tulsa we get skipped over,” Lewis said. “They go to Blue Whale, skip us and then go to POPS. It would be really great if we could bring those dollars back over here.”

Resting on the southern edge of Kendall-Whittier, Fuel 66 is yet another mark of growth in the area. Businesses like the Campbell Hotel, 918 Coffee, Marshall Brewing Co. and Dead Armadillo already call the area home, and new shops and restaurants are in the works. 

“There’s a lot of development going on down here—property has been purchased, people have the ideas, some of the concepts are even there—but we’re the first ones going in,” Carnoske said. “We feel a little bit of pressure. A lot of what is going to go on in this area depends on how we do. People are watching us and we are up for the challenge.” 

Fuel 66 is open for lunch and dinner six days a week, and closed on Monday. As they grow into the space, they plan on doing monthly events, like car shows, pet adoption days, and booking bands for the weekends. The line-up of trucks and events will be posted regularly on the Fuel 66 Facebook page.

For more from Angela, read her article on the breakfast buffet at Cloud 9 Gentleman's Club, “Legs & Eggs.”