The Hot Box Diner

We stopped in at their home location in north Austin by the owner’s aunt’s resale shop. Excellent overall experience and service. Have picnic tables and outdoor heater. Apparently, the truck is also at Draught house sometimes as well, so if you see them there, give Hot Box a try! While we were waiting for the food, we shopped (resale shop was even open on a Friday night) and chatted with the owners.
Ok, now to the food! Pork sliders rocked. Beef quesadilla was really thick and killer with the orange creamy sauce. We also got the chicken rice bowl, which was ok, but would definitely recommend the quesadilla or sliders over the rice bowl. AND first time guests to the truck get a delicious from scratch brownie for free!

Vegetarian quesadilla was excellent (and I’m a quesadilla master), generous portion
Vegetarian rice bowl was spicy and flavorful, also a good sizeable (but not sickeningly large) portion, about the same size as a Chipotle bowl but way better especially if you like onions and potatoes
BYOB, dog friendly patio
Owner Robert has a fantastic story of how the truck came to be, ask him!
We will definitely be back. Lots of street parking on Stark Street. Make this food truck a stop on your way to half price books!

Generally good and the type of food you’d expect at this price point. I would order from here again, through probs to try a couple of different things.
I had delivery and ate the following things:
— Bacon Blue Cheese Queso Chips: The dip was too thin for me. It was difficult to keep it on a chip. And I didn’t really taste any of the blue cheese. It had the consistency and frankly, kinda tasted like, potato soup. It was good, but probably won’t be ordering this again.
— Hot Box Wings w/​BBQ Sriracha: The wings are delicious! And I loved the sauce. The wings weren’t too fatty, they weren’t over-​sauced, they were really good. Would def get these wings again.
— Beef Queso Sliders: The beef was meh. Frankly, the proportions were off. The rolls were buttery and toasted, which I loved. But the beef was a little bland (but thankfully not dry), and there was just too much! There is just too much beef on these sandwiches. It means that there isn’t enough queso or pickles either to match the level of beef. To get the right proportions (and to take a manageable bite), you have to take about half the beef off. I’d rather have a lower price point and get a yummy sandwich with everything in the right, tasty proportions. Also, they were generally meh to me, so I will likely not order these again.

I ordered delivery to my office through Unilocal.From there I was given an ETA text, and they were here on the time I expected via the ETA. I ordered the Hot Box Rice Bowl (Old School with sliced avocado and grilled jalapeños), and it is way better than I expected! Also, I tipped on Unilocal and tried to tip the driver but they didn’t take it since I had tipped before the driver was also really friendly with our receptionist, it’s the little things totally ordering from here again!

Chicken wings were great I don’t do spicy guy was very nice suggested sauce on the side. Which was great cause I was able to dip my wings. Also got the fried corn wish I had gotten two or three. I will go here again that’s for sure

Food was average, nothing to write home about. HOWEVER, the reason to absolutely go here is the customer service. It is owned by a mother and son, and the retail store on the property is owned by the mom’s sister. From the moment we stepped on the property it was nothing but kindness, from offers of complimentary beverages and food samples to nice conversation. We will certainly be back, not necessarily because we love the food, but because we want to support this local, family-​owned friendly business!

Food was good until the hair, about 6″ long brown, suspect it was the cook/​owner of the truck. Kind of a mess inside and rough looking on the exterior but have heard good things so it was on my list. Was out of the beef for the bowl so I went with the pork. Salsa didn’t look like the photos, mostly watery liquid. Based on the taste would go 3.5 stars but add in the hair in the dish and appearance of the inside of the truck, 2 is probably being generous. Sorry to say but I won’t be back.

Really like this place! Have eaten here several times and it has always been a great experience. So happy that these guys are in my neighbourhood. Try the pork sliders or the avocado salad. Keep up the good work guys.

First off, the owner is young and super nice, accommodating, and passionate about food. It’s very apparent right off the bat, and then once you get your food you can taste it. Western eastern fusion. Friends and I went there tonight and loved all of the food he made including fries that weren’t on the menu that he gave us for free. Yucca fries pickled for days and then fried with a creamy habanero sauce. SO DELICIOUS. The sauce is delicious but not even needed. The fries by themselves are sooo amazing. They deliver and start making breakfast next week, which I can’t wait to try. HIGHLY recommended. BYOB, nice atmosphere with picnic tables, and I great vintage store on the same lot to look into while you wait for your food.

This has been on my list for awhile. I wanted to love this place because one of my friends was raving about it. We went on a nice Sunday evening after we had been at the lake all day. We used the Unilocal check in offer and we got 25% off our entire order. Between 4 of us we ordered a ton of food. My husband and I ordered the following —
Gringo — Chicken Tacos
I got to taste these and they were pretty good. They ran out of the Green sauce so we got it with the Orange Haze which I am a fan.
Americano — Beef Tacos
Hubby seemed to enjoy them but I didn’t get to taste them
The Boss — Beef Quesadillas
This came with the Orange Haze sauce which was great. These quesadillas were a little to over the top for me. I felt like I didn’t get very much beef. It has black beans, bell pepper, onions, cilantro and of course cheese. Wasn’t a fan of this.
Queso and Chips
This wasn’t your typical queso. I’m not sure what they had in it but it was tasty. Best part was we had piping hot chips to go with it.
The tacos were served with a side of black beans and white rice mix. I was excited to munch on these since I didn’t LOVE my quesadilla but it was really bland. I ate some of it with the Orange Haze sauce.
My friends ordered some tacos, quesadilla and a flauta. This isn’t your typical flauta. They ordered the Pork and I was loving it. I will come back to try more flautas. They wrap the meat with sushi rice, then wrap that with a flour tortilla and fry it! Kind of reminded me of Spam Musubi minus the nori and spam. I was digging the flautas.
Service was really casual and a bit lagging. We were the only ones out there but we did give them a pretty big order. They let us have our chips and queso first. They also let us pay after we got our food so they could figure it all out.
Overall mediocre experience. Kind of bummed that I was so excited to try and it wasn’t as amazing as I dreamt it up to be.

My boyfriend and I each got a quesadilla. He got the plum tea pork and I got the vegetarian one with the avocado. Both were very yummy and simple and the prices were reasonable. Nothing astounding but quite tasty.

The food is great, my wife & I went there once for breakfast & once for dinner so far, we loved the breakfast quesadilla & the rice bowls with meat, cilantro, spices, etc. The owners were friendly too, check it out!

Ordered delivery from GrubHub and it predicted an hour for delivery time. They only took 30 min to deliver my food and it was sooooo good. I’m Cuban-​Mexican and grew up having authentic Latin food and the tostones were perfect. They had a lot of salt, but that’s normal and you can dust it off. I had the vegetarian tacos and my co-​worker had the chicken. We were both very pleased with our meals!

The pulled pork sliders are the BOMB! Before I knew what happened, they were gobbled up in mere seconds (by me, of course). These tasty treats are comprised of delicious lean pulled pork and shredded slaw inside mini Hawaiian rolls, and whatever is in the orange haze cream sauce is like magic. I also sampled their quesadillas, both «The Boss» (beef) and «The Rooster» (shredded chicken breast), and these were very tasty too.
The staff at Hot Box is super friendly and very customer focused. There is plenty of seating for a large group.

I recently moved to Austin and tonight was my first time to eat at a food truck. I definitely picked the right truck! I learned about Hot Box Diner on a new app, Belly that lists restaurants and food deals they are offering. The food was wonderful, very fresh and flavorful. I had the chicken rice bowl which was wonderful, the tostado chips were so light and crispy and the avocado salad was delicious as well. Really nice owner and chef, mother and son duo, with really good food!

I visited the The Hot Box on Wednesday for lunch. The food was awesome and very cost effective. The queso and chips were very good and made from real cheese and heavy cream. I also tried the chicken flautas. Very good. Don’t forget to top off your meal with one of their brownies!

First, it took forever for the lady to take our order. Even though she saw us waiting, she kept her attention to someone else who already placed an order. Second, ordered 2 tacos, one veggie and one pork. We asked for no onions and to our surprise there were onions. Third, the tacos were extremely bland. No flavor whatsoever. If you are going to be a taco truck, then make your food taste like a taco truck. Also, the veggie taco’s tortilla tasted like it wasn’t even heated up. The whole experience was gross and disappointing. I will not be returning again.

I visited The Hot Box Diner last night as part of Austin’s Truck and Trailer food festival, Truck By TruckWest. their signature dish for the competition was the Chicken Flauta. THIS, my friends, is no chintzy little shredded chicken in a dry corn tortilla. NO SIR! This was in fact, a fantastic little fusion dish of an amazing, almost tempura-​light crispy tortilla that is more akin to an egg roll or won-​ton wrapper than the clunky corn tortilla that other restaurants will serve you. And wrapped inside is not just some sorry pulled-​chicken shreds, but rather a sushi-​roll like inner layer of sticky rice, around a juicy, flavorful chicken and avacado and vegetable mix that is wholly unlike any flauta you’ve had before but still true to it’s tex-​mex roots in flavor and style. This is the chicken flauta 2.0, next-​gen, ‘new-hotness’-as-opposed-to-‘old-busted’ flauta for the future right here. For reals!
Robert, the owner was on hand serving for the festival and he treated us WAY right. He’s a young, casual, down-​to-​Earth chef with a great attitude and he’s good to his Mother (She called while we were there and I was eavesdropping and he was totally loving and respectful. Way to be a MAN, Bob! Righteous Respect, Bro!)
Anyway, this place is in a positively DANK locale but it is totally worth going to any day, right now. Plus, you can pick up a free coupon for fried plantains on your next visit right at the window. And fried plantains are the shiggedy! So come get some. This truck is the real deal front to back. You’ll definitely be glad you went.

Liked this place a lot! They were friendly, helpful, had gluten-​free options, and even gave me a sample of a not-​yet-​on-​the-​menu item, the Caribe (Carribean?) Tamale, which was great! Lots of pork, not too dry, spicy without being overwhelming – I’d recommend it :).
I also had a pork rice bowl and a side of plantains. A note on the rice bowls: they are HUGE. Couldn’t even finish it, but I also ate half of the tamale – which was also enormous – so that took up some room.
Also, the plantains. THE PLANTAINS. GET THEM. Perfectly fried and not greasy, with a good shake of salt on the top. Really awesome!!!
The only reason I’m docking a star is something that other reviewers noted, which was the difficulty of ordering. You have a piece of paper with all the options, and you circle what you want, but the menu layout is confusing and I accidentally ordered some things I didn’t want (that they caught and helped me out with, thankfully!) and also missed other options I would’ve wanted, just because it wasn’t easy to read. So they just need to change the layout of their menu.
Overall, I’d recommend it :).

I have to first say, this is one of those diamonds in the rough. A food truck that what looks to be haphazardly placed in front of a little business on a side street of busy N Lamar Blvd. It’s actually been strategically placed by the owner in front of another family business, a pretty cool little resale shop called Pipers Resale. But back to Hot Box Diner…
It’s not glamorous, but about what you should expect from a food truck: minimal seating, etc. What makes it wonderful is the food. I love that our city gives chefs with little startup money a way to make wonderful food with the love and devotion truly talented chefs have. And Hot Box Diner fare is exactly that. You choose how you want your food: taco, flauta, quesadilla, etc., then choose your meat (or veggie option) and the extras. I had the chicken tacos, and this is what the food truck industry was meant to be: 5 star quality food at a reasonable price due to low overhead.
The Hot Box Diner has only been open a couple of months, but I suspect this place is going to become a huge success!