Eyre Square home to Tito Ben’s, a new Filipino-Irish food truck
Ben Bertulfo inside Tito Ben's food truck / Photo by Gunjan Shah
Recently, Galway has welcomed a Filipino-Irish food truck at its city centre.
Owned by Mr. Bernard (Ben) Bertulfo, Tito Ben’s Food Truck offers a variety of Philippine and Irish delicacies.
“While there are many food outlets in Galway,” said Ben, “Tito Ben’s is the only food truck/establishment that offers Filipino cuisine on the menu, along with a few Irish dishes like burgers and chips,” he added.
Ben’s journey
Ben came to Ireland in 2001 to make a living and make money for his family. He worked at Park House Hotel near Eyre Square for four years. Over the years, he worked at multiple places before setting up the food truck in 2021, with an experience of cooking for 15 years.
Recollecting the hardships that he went through, Ben said, “Because of the pandemic, it’s been on and off.”
“It is hard if you have limited resources, especially in a foreign country,” said Ben. “It’s hard to introduce your food; some people don’t know your food. It’s working good so far,” he added.
The journey of the truck
Ben bought the truck in 2020 in Donegal. His first market in 2021 was Maam Cross in Connemara, roughly an hour from Galway.
Before setting up his truck in Galway, he operated ‘Tito Ben’s’ in Moycullen Market and Country Mayo near Ashford Castle.
For a brief time, Ben was upskilling himself at Atlantic Technological University (ATU). He felt his culinary arts knowledge was insufficient, so he enrolled at the university. Directly after finishing courses, he set up the truck in Co. Mayo.
“Three years ago, I applied to set up the food truck in the Santa Claus market for Saturday and Sunday,” said Ben, remembering the struggle of getting the license to operate the truck in Galway.
“However, the market was packed; it was not only me doing the food truck at the time. Everybody was doing it. There were many food trucks, so they told me that the market was full,” he added.
Ben said that it took him three years to receive a license from the city council to operate the food truck in Galway.
Customers and best-selling dishes
The footfall is not excessively high since the truck was set up only three weeks ago. But Ben said that the crowd coming to the food truck is a mix of Irish people, people from the Philippines and customers of other nationalities.
“I have a regular Irish here, like, there’s a guy in Golden Discs, he frequents here to get the chicken curry,” said Ben. “So that’s my regular customer,” he added.
Regarding the best-selling food items, Ben mentioned that people used to love the chicken burger and the beef burger in County Mayo. However, he noted that people’s food choices in Galway are poles apart from those from Mayo.
“The Pancit, which is the stir-fried noodles, then I have the Lumpia, the Filipino spring roll, and the Lugaw, the rice porridge with chicken. I think these three dishes are my bestsellers in Galway so far,” said Ben.
Speaking of the average number of customers that visit ‘Tito Ben’s’, he mentioned that it would be around 15 to 20. On a quiet day, it is 9 or 10 people, and on a busy day, it can be 30 to 40 customers a day.
Plans for the future
“The rent here is crazy,” Ben said when asked about his plans to set up a permanent outlet. “The number one thing is the location; if you don’t have the location, even if you have a nice food truck, nice recipes, and nice equipment, it is not worth it.”
Ben hopes to duplicate his truck in five years and establish it in a secondary location like Tuam or Ballinasloe.
