2024-04-29 19:05:15
On just twelve square meters, they can conjure up a puffy cheeseburger, fragrant curry and buns with shoddy. Even the representative of the film Harry Potter once enjoyed their vegetarian hot dog. Anna and Michael Mlýnk have been parking the Comic Con food truck in Zlín for four years. At the same time, they themselves doubted whether they would be able to wake up the sleepy gastronomic scene of the city of Baťa.
So far, the gastronomic renaissance has not affected Zlín as much as other regional cities. It will be all the more surprising when a mobile stand appears on a secluded spot in Kvítková street, where you can taste street food from all corners of the world. The menu includes Thai chicken curry with homemade pancakes and a Mexican quesadilla with pulled pork and burnt pepper dip. From Canada comes poutine fries fried in lard with pulled beef roasted for fifteen hours and a sauce made from beef broth that has been pulled for ten hours.
From one side of the sales window, the Hulk teeths at passers-by, from the other, Superman winks at them. However, the real superheroes here are the Mlýnks, who usually operate the Comic Con food truck in pairs. Thirty-year-old Michael is preparing a cheeseburger. Meanwhile, Anna, who is a year younger, is trying to take care of her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, because she just couldn’t find anyone to babysit. “We have a different menu every week. As soon as you don’t always come up with something new in Zlín, people immediately lose interest. Our weakness is that we come up with everything at the last minute. Nevertheless, so far it has always turned out well,” says Anna.
From Canada comes poutine fries fried in lard with fifteen-hour roast beef, sauce made from ten-hour beef stock and cheese. | Photo: Jakub Plíhal
They didn’t want to go to Zlín, they thought it was a backwater
At the same time, Mr. and Mrs. Mlýnk got used to gastronomy from completely different fields. Michael studied mechatronics, Anna studied economics. “However, my husband is a bad mechatronics engineer and I’m an even worse economist. That’s why we started working after freshman year and ended up in Prague in managerial positions – my husband was involved in domestic business, I was in foreign business. At one point, however, we were already up to our necks in the corporate world and we wanted to start something of our own. We were inspired abroad, where food trucks were already quite new in the Czech Republic. So we bought the only van that was available on our market at the time, for an awful lot of money.” Anna returns seven years ago.
First they parked their car on the Prague embankment, later they moved to Moravia, where there was much more hunger for food festivals. They also ventured into catering, which brought them a magical experience. Once they were called from the Barrand studios to entertain the film crew. “We expected that it would, for example, be about the filming of The Doctor’s Office in the Rose Garden. But then we arrived on the set and one of the filmmakers mentioned that Daniel Radcliffe was also there. We both grew up watching Harry Potter. So when we saw him live, it came true for us a childhood dream. Moreover, he was very nice, he had a vegetarian hot dog and then praised us that it was fantastic,” recalls Anna.
Finally, it was time to look for a stable sales location. They were attracted to Brno, but the couple did not succeed due to the city’s conditions. On the contrary, they experienced success at wine festivals, which prompted them to move to Mikulov. But their plans were thwarted by covid, suddenly there was nothing left of the diary full of gastronomic events. Since they both come from Zlín, they finally decided to try their luck in the city, where they had a background thanks to relatives and friends. “We really didn’t want to come here at all. Zlín seemed like a backwater to us and we still stand by it. We don’t know where else we would go to eat here,” admits Anna.
You can’t do it with a child, Hejlík warned them
While Brno’s gastronomic scene is kept alive by students, the situation is different in Zlín. “Seventy thousand potential customers live here, but students prefer to go to mecca, factory workers are not interested in modern businesses, and tourism practically does not work here. People come here mainly to the zoo, but the city is empty during the summer season,” Anna lists the pitfalls that with her husband they had to face. Nevertheless, in the end they found a loyal clientele in Zlín. “Families with children come to us, but also retired people who can appreciate that the young generation is trying to do something here. We are also visited by more affluent customers who could treat themselves to five-star restaurants, but they can easily eat from our pallets,” he describes Anna.
The surprise bestseller of the Comic Con food truck was the shoddy buns. “Once, out of the recession, we decided to cook classic Czech food. We baked leavened buns on lard, covered them with egg yolk cream, and then we were surprised that people ate them in large quantities. Now we’ve been making them for three years, always in the middle of the month, Anna smiles. They are open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Those interested can come for lunch between 11:00 and 13:00, and for dinner between 16:00 and 18:00. “In other times, almost no one came here. We sell 350 meals a week, which is enough to pay for it,” Anna adds.
Superman winks at customers from the checkout window. However, the real superheroes are Mr. and Mrs. Mlýnk, who usually operate the food truck in pairs. | Photo: Jakub Plíhal
“When Lukáš Hejlík first visited us and saw me with a pregnant belly, he warned us that we wouldn’t be able to handle it with a child. But we’re still here and we’ve even bought a second food truck with which we cover festivals,” she mentions. The season of gastronomic events is just starting, so the couple is in for a busy season. Moreover, they mostly take place on weekends, which means that Anna will have to take care of everything herself in Zlín, while Michael will travel to other regions. “In the future, we would like to replace the original food truck with a nice container, ideally lined with wood, in order to move things forward here. It will only cost us about half a million, so we are waiting for the right time,” adds Anna.