Darren Anthony Lamboy drove to Albany on a recent Tuesday morning to see his new, bright yellow food trailer for the first time.
“It’s amazing, it’s really amazing,” Lamboy said.
This was a big moment. Lamboy is the proud owner of Boriqua Kitchen, the only authentic Puerto Rican food truck in the Bay Area. He started the business in 2017, but for the last few months Lamboy was a chef without his food truck.
Lamboy’s previous kitchen on wheels, a used trailer built over a decade ago, was starting to need a lot more maintenance and long journeys were taking a toll.
So he ordered the new custom-built trailer from a company in Texas. One side of the trailer displays colorful buildings from old San Juan. The back of the trailer is covered by the image of the Puerto Rican flag so no one can miss it.
The driver told Lamboy that during the food trailer’s long journey to California, curious passersby kept asking where it was headed.
“It’s like riding a bike, you never forget. You just gotta get back in the kitchen. I’m ready,” Lamboy said. “We’re back.”
A new beginning for Boriqua Kitchen
The trailer’s arrival signals the launch of what Lamboy is calling Boriqua Kitchen 2.0. He already sold out during a pop-up at Alameda Dog Park on Sunday, and has his sights on the Costco in Richmond. That spot is where Boriqua Kitchen developed a following, and he says people recognize him when he drops by the big-box store. Fans have asked when he’ll be back. When he does return to the street parking area in front of Costco, Lamboy will hang up his Puerto Rican flag on his new trailer and everyone will know he’s arrived.
“People are like, ‘We’re waiting for you. We’re waiting for you,’” Lamboy said. “It’s always something that transports them back to somewhere when they taste the food. Puerto Rico is a faraway place, so if I can bring a little bit of that to them, it’s a good feeling.”
Lamboy will be back with his signature dishes, like #21 Roberto Clemente, named after the famous Puerto Rican baseball player. It consists of fried boneless chicken thigh pieces with rice, beans, and sweet plantains. He’ll also add mofongos to the menu, as well as desserts like quesitos, pastries with guava jelly and cream cheese.
“We’re definitely going to raise the bar,” Lamboy said.
Inspired by a Puerto Rican grandma
For most of his life, 59-year-old Lamboy worked as a union plumber and his culinary dreams simmered in the background. But he never forgot his grandmother’s cooking.
He grew up in Jersey City, home to a large Puerto Rican community. His mom cooked food like lasagna, meatloaf and spaghetti. But Sunday trips to his grandmother’s house were filled with Puerto Rican food.
His grandma’s chicken soup — brimming with corn, potatoes, carrots and onions — would simmer for hours on a big pot on the stove. The rice was practically a porridge, and she dished out very sweet plantains. She would fry up pernil (roasted pork) and make arroz con gandules (rice and pigeon peas).
“We would just be in awe,” Lamboy said.
He joined the Navy, and in 1993 moved to California, where he met his wife and raised three children. He later joined the Army, and worked as a plumber for more than two decades. But the job was taking a toll on his shoulder and back. He began looking for other options.
“And my kids were like, ‘Well, what do you want to do, Dad? You like to cook. Why don’t you go to culinary school?’”
So in 2015, with his tuition covered because of his military service, Lamboy enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in San Francisco. While learning knife skills, baking, and how to cook under pressure, Lamboy began thinking about his next move.
“Something kind of hit me,” Lamboy said. “There’s no Puerto Rican food trucks out here.”
The Puerto Rican population in the United States is concentrated on the East Coast, particularly in Florida and New York. Lamboy saw his shot to stand out while bringing his culture to more people. Boriqua Kitchen was born.
Boriqua Kitchen breaks through
Lamboy got his food trailer in 2017 after graduating from culinary school, debuting at a fundraiser in San Francisco to support victims of Hurricane Maria. He remembers advice his grandmother gave him about cooking: “Make sure it’s consistent, authentic, and just feed the people.”
He would park by Lake Merritt and other spots in Oakland. But those first couple of years were hard. His daughter, Lauren Lamboy, a photographer and event producer, said seeing him come home disappointed was rough.
But she also said her dad was someone who never quit.
Plus, she grew up eating his food, and knew how good it was. He even named one of his dishes, Lauren’s Bistec Encebollado, based on one of her favorite meals.
“I knew he had something valuable. He had found a pocket in the Bay Area food scene that wasn’t really filled yet,” Lauren said. “And I knew his food was so good. It has to take off at some point, because it’s too good and it’s too special to not.”
It was when he started to park by Costco, Lauren remembered, that Boriqua Kitchen expanded its reach.
When restaurants closed during the pandemic lockdowns in 2020, people sought out food trucks where they could grab food while minimizing contact with others. The Richmond Costco draws people from all over the Bay Area. Costco’s employees started stopping by Boriqua Kitchen to try out the food, and people passing by with shopping carts would pause for a bite to eat.
The smell, Lamboy said, caught people’s attention and lured them toward the food truck.
“People would come by and be like, ‘Oh my God, what’s that smell?’ And then like, ‘What? What kind of truck is this? And I’m like, ‘It’s a Puerto Rican food truck’,” Lamboy said. “And then people were like, ‘Oh my God, I got to try this.’”
The taste of Puerto Rico resonates
Lamboy said the love and support from his wife and family are the backbone of Boriqua Kitchen. He and his wife bought a house in Richmond around the time the business was taking off there, and he started parking by Costco more regularly. The food truck became part of customers’ routine. Before long, people were waiting for him in the parking lot before he even opened.
Boriqua Kitchen now has nearly 34,000 followers on Instagram. Lauren acts like a kind of consultant for the page, and her younger sister spearheads the posts. The food truck has since done pop-ups all over the Bay Area, at weddings and parties, even catering for Latin trap megastar Bad Bunny.
Puerto Ricans have told Lamboy how much the food means to them. He remembers how during Carnival in San Francisco in 2018, a man with tattoos and a gold chain came up to the window of the food truck after eating his food.
Lamboy said the man jokingly asked if his grandmother was at the food truck, explaining, “Because you made me go back to her house when I was a kid. This is on point. The food is on point.”
While he waited for his new trailer, Lamboy documented some of his recipes to pass down to family. Regardless of how big Boriqua Kitchen becomes, Lamboy plans to keep the mobile business going.
After all, he still operates the only food truck that serves Puerto Rican food in the area, and the only one like it you may ever find by a Costco in Richmond.
