Cambodian food trucks are carving out a place for themselves in the Twin Cities’ dining scene – and whet local foodies’ appetites for a cuisine less well-known than that of their Laotian and Thai neighbors.

Attracted by low start-up costs, flexible working hours and the popularity of street festivals such as the Little Mekong Night Market and the Asia Street Food Night Market, traders are testing the market for new foods, such as unusual spring rolls or sugarcane-based drinks.

Chamnap Nay opened Mrs. Eggroll during the pandemic as a means of fundraising, and she now sells thousands of egg rolls at events and online.

Kathy Rouen, who opened 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 open food trucks.

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

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

A fundraiser turns into a company

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

Soon after her move, she founded a program called Operation One Day Smiles through the International Khmer Assembly, which recognizes the contributions of Cambodian veterans who served in the Vietnam War. The program provides food and other basic needs to orphans and the elderly in Cambodia.

“I got the idea to sell spring rolls because the company I worked for at the time had an annual fundraiser for the American Heart Association where employees got involved in making spring rolls and collecting donations,” Nay said.

She got 100 of her employees to participate in her fundraiser supporting the One Day Smiles program. Her fundraiser won the grand prize, 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 use a portion of it to support children in Cambodia. We were also able to build the first Cambodian museum in St. Paul,” Nay said.

That was when Mrs. Eggroll was born.

“We bake spring rolls for sale and continue to finance our small projects in Cambodia,” said Nay.

Although she had to limit her work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she hopes to get her business back up and running soon. Her team consists of volunteers who help make spring rolls and oversee business operations.

Nay and her volunteers work full-time, which has presented challenges in restarting operations.

“We are 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 participates in several events in the Twin Cities during the summer and also sells spring rolls online. She said she always looks to the future when planning how many spring rolls she will make and spends much of her weekends making spring rolls for customers and preparing them for upcoming events.

Customers can choose from flavors ranging from chicken and vegetable spring rolls to apple pie flavored spring rolls to pepperoni and cheese spring rolls.

“Our spring rolls are small, which sets us apart from other vendors,” said Nay. “We sell about 3,000 to 5,000 spring rolls at each event.”

An early adopter

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

Khmer Cuisine serves Cambodian dishes such as beef and chicken with lemongrass and sour soup, as well as pan-Asian classics such as pad thai, fried rice and spring rolls.

The truck has spent most of the summer at Fleet Farm in Brooklyn Park or on White Bear Avenue in St. Paul, which has helped Roeun gain a loyal following. She also attends food festivals.

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

Rouen used to work in a tailor shop. Now she runs the food truck from April to November.

She has encouraged others in the Cambodian community who want to be their own boss to open food trucks. Rouen said it takes about $40,000 to $80,000 to open 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 people who want to start a small business, this is a very nice (option),” she said.

The health food influencer

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

When her children started playing sports, she began researching beverages that were good for sports participation.

“Water is the best way to stay hydrated, and they don’t always want to drink water, they

“I want to drink Prime (energy drink) and Gatorade,” Peterson said. “It’s banned in a lot of countries, so I started looking into sugar cane a little more.”

Peterson, who travels extensively, said sugarcane is popular in many countries outside Southeast Asia, including Egypt, Brazil and Costa Rica.

“All these people from different countries come to our truck and say, ‘This tastes like home, thank you for doing this,’ and it’s a great honor to be able to bring this to so many different countries and people,” Peterson said.

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

“Anything you put in your body, it can actually process,” Peterson said. “We’ve had people come to us and say, ‘I have diabetes and I can drink this without my blood sugar spiking.’ To be able to do that for those customers is really great for us.”

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

“It’s really, really exciting because we feel good about giving them something healthy and delicious,” Peterson said. “We’ve had messages from people in Wisconsin, Texas and California asking if we can send them our sugar cane juice, so it’s been really fun.”