Eight years ago, Dunedin was different, and by different I mean objectively worse. Today it’s a (vaguely) bustling town of fusion cuisines, pokey cafes and various delicacies, but back then, the only food trucks were TexOtago and the Bacon Buttie Station. Even then the concept of travelling around to various locations outside of a weekly market was strange, and food stalls were a standard white-people fare of chips and hot dogs.
The churro truck ‘Churros Ole’, and the friendly faces within, have been a longstanding feature of Dunedin’s food scene. There’s simply nothing quite like a hot, sugary churro on a bitterly cold night. But times are changing, and co-owners Irene Fuertes Jerez and Matt Collier are selling the business after eight “wonderful” years to sail around the world. Critic spoke with them about their time in our small southern city, and what’s next for the duo.
Irene and Matt are just so fucking cool. They’re the people you want at a dinner party, if you were rich enough to host dinner parties. Originally, the pair owned a small catering company, but the long hours starting at 4am started to take a toll. “We just got over it really quickly,” laughed Matt. A market at the stadium was just starting up, so the pair whimsically decided to start a gazebo selling churros: the ultimate origin story. They had “no idea” how to make churros when starting, but Irene had fond memories of her childhood in Spain with the iconic dessert: “Whenever you eat churros there, everyone’s happy!” Move over SSRI’s, there’s a new sheriff in town. “It wasn’t even a proper idea. Was it? No, it was something to do on the weekends. There's a market! What goes with markets? Churros,” she said. One of her grandfather’s friends owns a churrería back in Spain and was able to offer instructions, recipes and advice. “I hadn’t seen churros in New Zealand but you can’t not like them. I mean, it's so simple. It's just for everybody's tastes. You might not like sweet stuff, then don't add sugar. You might not like savoury, well, you add the sugar. You don't want the sauces? That's okay!” In her words lie a simple truth - fried dough is delicious and should be protected at all costs. But the concept was once foreign to our shores. Irene would dress as a flamingo dancer and offer free samples, but shockingly her plates remained largely untouched. “Nobody knew what a churro was— we couldn't give them all away!” Now, the tasty treat is found even in the whitest of establishments: Burger King and Domino’s. The cultural IMPACT.
The couple vividly remembers their first day, coincidentally on the national day of Spain, calling it “insane”. They had borrowed everything from friends—frying pans, saucepans, the lot— and made the dough in the kitchen of Surfin Slices, an old pizza joint. At the gazebo, they piped the churros by hand rather than machine (“by the end of the day, I couldn't open my hands”) and a queue of 45 minutes stretched around the block. “We ran out of everything, all the dough and chocolate, but people didn't care. The churros didn't even look like churros, they looked like scrolls!” Irene said. Matt cheekily added “but nobody knew what they were meant to look like anyway, so it was fine”.
After a year of the gazebo, they designed a custom-built trailer for their growing business. Their success didn’t go unnoticed. For the next few years, there was a “boom” in food trucks around the city, with waiting lists to park at the Museum Reserve. Dunedin’s horizons had opened, cultural perspectives shifted and the masses were hungry. This boom has died down recently, but the noble churro truck has ridden the wave every step of the way.
Not to transition to a low-budget sci-fi introduction, but things changed during COVID-19. They had harboured a dream for seven years to buy a boat, and suddenly boat prices started dropping. The opportunity seemed too good not to take up. The pair plan to sail around the world, and honestly, I wish they would take me with them. Mamma Mia 3 here we fucking go!!! The pair describe the relocation as “bittersweet” and “surreal” with lots to organise before they make the big move. They’re selling everything, from house to both churro trucks, and even need to get passports for their dogs and co-captains, Jackie and Siete. “It's also terrifying because we don’t know how to sail,” said Irene. They don’t know where they’ll go, or how much they’ll need to repair the boat before its seaworthy, saying “it kind of depends on where we can actually go to at the moment”. The pair plan on making a YouTube channel so their fans can follow them on their heart-warming adventures. Irene and Matt will miss making churros, but perhaps more than that, they’ll miss eating them, confessing: “We still eat them every day! We’ve made them for eight years and every day that we're cooking them in the trailer we're eating them as well. We'll definitely, definitely miss them, I get cravings for them if we're away on holiday for a couple of weeks.” Honestly, same.
With the truck often parked outside campus, it’s hard not to get sentimental about the departure of two icons. Matt said, “we’ve seen students that come weekly— we see them in year one and then we see them when they go away or they keep going with a masters,” with some students even in touch with the pair years after they’ve graduated. Fear not, the churro truck will still be around, just with different owners. But there’s no denying the impact that Matt and Irene have had on Dunedin’s fledging food scene, and the two will be sorely missed. Here’s to two legends, and the mouth-watering first bite of a crisp, sugary churro. May both stay warm and tender-hearted.