Food truck court coming to Tanger Outlet Center 2

A food court is coming to Bluffton.

But it's not the familiar food-court scene you're used to seeing in a mall: brightly lit interior, employees standing outside restaurants with food on sticks, cafeteria-style seating in the middle.

Instead, local food trucks will line up in the middle of the center to serve shoppers and retailers.

Lowcountry Rocks Lobster, Ragin Cajun, Shrimp Loco and new food truck Downtown Curbside Kitchen, operated by Downtown Deli owners Leah and Ryan McCarthy, are the four confirmed vendors participating in the food court, said Ashley Doepp, general manager of the Tanger Outlet Centers in Bluffton. The food court will begin next week, with a tentative start date of July 21.

Doepp said she hopes the concept will be permanent, but the "test run" is set through Labor Day.

"It came from a need to provide food to shoppers and retailers in Tanger 2," Doepp said, as currently, there are only options for coffee and dessert in the center.

Doepp recalled all the food trucks she saw in Long Island, N.Y., where she is from. When she moved here, she was surprised by the lack of a food truck scene in the Lowcountry.

So, in May, she contacted the food trucks she knew about with an idea she had: A pedestrian space in the middle of Tanger Outlets Center 2 with Beaufort County food trucks serving lunch and dinner.

"We're creating this as we go," she said, adding there's no template to follow because there's nothing like it yet in Beaufort County.

The past couple of months have required getting zoning permits, business licenses, fire marshal approval and insurance. The center of Tanger Outlets 2 will be closed off to pedestrian traffic during food court operational hours, so vehicular traffic will be rerouted to either side of the center, in a rectangular traffic pattern.

To start, the food court will be open 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, eventually moving to 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday to Friday and, starting in August, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. or later on weekends, Doepp said. Shrimp Loco will only be at the center Friday to Sunday, beginning at the end of July. Doepp is in talks with other local food trucks and hopes to add more to the food court eventually.

2015 Taste of Bluffton winner Lowcountry Rocks Lobster will serve lobster rolls, lobster tacos, lobster nachos and lobster mac 'n' cheese. Ragin Cajun's menu includes cajun-spiced pulled pork, po' boys and gator sliders, and Shrimp Loco will serve shrimp tacos and salads.

One food truck will make its debut at the Tanger Outlets food court: Downtown Curbside Kitchen.

The McCarthys have owned Downtown Deli in Bluffton for 12 years and have been catering for almost 15. But they kept running into the same problem at some of their catering sites.

"(The food truck's) really starting as a mobile kitchen," Leah McCarthy said. "We're used to off-premises catering, but not all (places) have kitchens."

But now, she said, with the food truck, they can be a "kitchen on wheels" and also participate in festivals, fundraising events and the food truck court at Tanger Outlets.

Downtown Curbside Kitchen will serve Southern cuisine such as grilled pimento cheese sandwiches, fried green tomato BLT sliders, slow-cooked beef brisket and hand-pulled chicken salad biscuits.

Follow reporter Ashley Fahey at twitter.com/IPBG_Ashley.

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• Update on new restaurants opening in Beaufort County , June 18, 2015
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This story was originally published July 16, 2015 at 7:31 PM with the headline "Food truck court coming to Tanger Outlet Center 2."