Customers who come especially from The Hague or Assen for a sandwich. A queue of 45 minutes: the madness surrounding the food truck of Maickel Bouw (34) from Beek en Donk is complete. “This is gold,” the sandwich maker laughs.
Like an emergency room doctor who has had too much coffee, Maickel races through his kitchen. He hardly has time to talk. “I’ll be there soon,” he promises a few times. Will he get a burnout from all that flying? “No, only positive energy here,” he beams.
“I came all the way from The Hague for a sandwich,” says a 29-year-old man who is at the front of the queue in Asten on Thursday. “We saw it on TikTok so we drive back and forth.”
Customers from The Hague, Brielle in South Holland or Belgium: Maickel has seen them all. Madhouse? “That’s it! We got a big reach through social media. Then it blew up.”
The food truck guru makes videos with a GoPro camera on his chest. The craziest queue? “Three quarters of an hour or so,” he laughs. For a sandwich?! “Yes!” he laughs.
“They are standing in line laughing.”
“It actually doesn’t make any sense at all. They will also come back. Great, I have no words for that,” he shouts, in between work. “Laughing, they join the queue again. Gold!”
He travels to different places with his food truck. The business has more than 15,000 followers on Instagram alone. Some videos of the sandwich making process have been viewed more than 100,000 times.
“You’ve lost your full break.”
“It’s always busy,” says customer Roy (26) from Helmond, who has been coming biweekly for two years. “It was quiet in the beginning. Now you have lost your full break,” he laughs. Is it worth the effort? “It remains special!”
Maickel’s dream? “Conquer Brabant. Step by step, I want to add a food truck.”
