Welcome to Springwells, Detroit’s Underrated Food Truck Corridor #DetroitFood

A photo illustration of Mexican food being prepared and sold from food trucks. — Photo illustration by Lille Allen; see below for full credits

This pocket of Southwest Detroit offers a walkable stretch overstuffed with trailers serving empanadas, birria pizza, and refreshing mangonadas

If you really want your hand on the pulse of what daily living and eating looks like in Detroit, a shopping district Springwells situated between Vernor Highway and the Fisher Service Drive on the city’s southwest side provides residents and visitors with a visual juxtaposition of old and new — from a mostly Latinx food perspective. You won’t find overpriced condos and you’re several miles away from the nearest Whole Foods. Instead, you’ll find many of the signage of the area’s supermarkets, bakeries, auto mechanics, liquor stores, and barbershops are written in Spanish. Beyond the shops, lie some of the city’s underrated culinary treasures: Springwells is home to one of the largest concentrations of food trucks in the region, open year-round, rain, snow, or shine.

Southwest Detroit is somewhat unique within the city. It’s dense with people and many of the homes and storefronts maintain consistent occupancy. Throughout much of the 1990s, a wave of Mexican immigrants, mostly hailing from the highlands in the Mexican state of Jalisco, made their way to the Motor City, helping to rebuild the neighborhood at a time when much of the rest of the city was languishing as a result of disinvestment and compounded by decades of population loss. Residents here give personal touches to modest Midwestern kit homes, sometimes covering them in stucco or surrounding them in ornate iron fencing fabricated by Artistic Diseños — very much giving rancho vibes (a nod to la gente’s rural roots).

A man holding out a pineapple with a woman smiling behind him.

Here, century-old dive bars continue to serve as communal watering holes and bakeries sell conchas alongside birthday cakes. Each spring, a decades-old dairy stand, Family Treat, flings open its doors to the delight of residents for its soft-serve cones and crunchy Taco Tuesdays.

Within just under a mile, you’re bound to find at least seven — often more — food trucks and other street vendors set up for business at any given time. You just might come across a viral TikTok reviewer sampling a birria pizza from one of the trucks, and will inevitably spot some colorful wing-shaped signs advertising tacos, burritos, and tortas. Covered seating areas — some that incorporate patios with intricate brickwork — are the norm, inviting customers to stick around awhile rather than having to eat from parked cars. The customer base is a mix of long-haul truck drivers, construction workers, adventurous food seekers, and young families. Detroit may be one of the most segregated cities in America, but at the food trucks of Springwells, everyone comes together.

There’s a sense of community among the Springwells street food vendors.

Tacos el Caballo co-owner Jose Badajoz tells Eater that over the years, he’s served as the defacto fixer for new food truck owners in the city. If they’re unsure of how to apply for a license, they turn to him for advice. If they are new in town and need space to sell their food, he’s opened his lot to others (as is the case of a fruteria currently operating behind his truck). When a fire ripped through Michigan Avenue’s Tacos el Toro truck in 2023, it was Badajoz who provided the family-owned business with one of his other trucks.

Eater Detroit invited a handful of writers and photographers on a food crawl to learn more about the dishes that are emerging on Detroit’s low-key food truck corridor that continue to tell the story of Latin American migration to the Motor City and the foods that they’re bringing with them that are redefining what Midwest can be.

Antojitos and empanadas near Senator Street

Parked next to the Sheila’s Bakery parking lot, sit a pair of mobile eateries. One trailer, Gorditas Cuerna, serves a variety of antojitos — street snacks that mostly incorporate blue corn masa, such as sopes, quesadillas, huaraches, pambazos, and tlacoyos. The women at this spot are among the many micro-business owners in Detroit producing handmade masa delicacies.

A hand holds an oval sheet of blue corn masa on plastic wrap. — The women at Gorditas Cuerna are among the many micro-business owners in Detroit producing handmade masa delicacies.

Four dishes of food on round plates on a black tabletop. — The spread from Eater Detroit’s food crawl on Springwells in Southwest Detroit.

Next door is the Sergio’s Empanadas trailer, owned by Sergio Betancourt and his wife Diana Buitrago. The pair serve empanadas made with either corn or flour-based pastry and fill them with a choice of shredded or ground beef, pork, chicken, or shrimp. Buitrago, who is Venezuelan, tells Eater that soon, the couple will begin serving food typical of Ecuador, where her husband is from. Stick around, and you may find an elote vendor selling his mayo, tajin, and parmesan-dusted corn cobs from the trunk of his car parked on the street.

A woman facing another person through a window in a trailer. — Sergio’s Empanadas food trailer makes Venezuelan-style empanadas, available with corn or flour-based pastry.

An ear of corn above a container with parmesan cheese in between two other containers placed on top of a blue and white checkered cloth.

A man with dark hair, a mustache and wearing a red shirt and dark apron pouring hot sauce over an ear of corn.

Birria pizza, tacos, and mangonadas near Homer and Longworth

Further down the way, between Homer and Longworth streets the aroma of fiery birria will lead you to Tacos el Gordo — a food truck that serves what just might be the city’s first birria pizza, one of the myriad forms of birria that have taken off in recent years across the United States. Now available in Detroit, the birria can be swapped out for any of the truck’s other choices, like buche, cabeza, chorizo, or grilled steak, among others. Alondra Arias, who works at the food truck, tells Eater that the TikTok creator who goes by the name MrChimeTime visited the spot unannounced and ordered one of the pizzas, causing a frenzy for the dish. Arias was in Mexico at the time of his visit, but said that his impact was immediate.

“[We] were surprised because we would sell the pizza like not that much and when he posted the video, we would sell 20 pizzas or more a day,” she says. On Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays Tacos el Gordo sells upwards of 100 or more pizzas a day.

A blurry shot of a red food truck with the view obstructed by papel picado.

A trompo of marinated pork topped with a pineapple piece.

A man in a purple short sleeved shirt and a dark hat and black gloves chopping up meat on a griddle.

A piece of pizza birria with consome dripping above a white cup.

Across the street at Longworth, find Jose Badajoz and Nancy Paz, owners of Tacos el Caballo. Here, customers can enjoy a plate of tacos and a frosty glass bottle of Jarritos or Coke from a coverage patio area. For dessert, try a mangonada, a heaping cup of freshly cut fruit, or stock up on other Mexican candies and Takis from a fruteria that operates out of a trailer parked behind Tacos el Caballo.