April 26, 2023

Two best friends with a passion for cooking and baking have started a food truck with a menu that reflects their creativity.

“We want to cook from across the map and really bring people together with these authentic flavors – authentically from our heart though, with no limits,” said Savana Huntimer, who opened Street Bite with DJ Benthin in late March.

They’ve taken over the former Food Mama trailer and are operating from the same base at 11th Street and Cliff Avenue, across the street from the Drake Springs pool.

Hours can vary depending on the weather, but typically Street Bite is open Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for lunch and 4 to 7 p.m. for supper. (Editor’s note: They expanded April 28 to noon to 7 p.m.)

“We’re just going to take things day by day literally and maybe open up (add) some hours,” Benthin said. “We’ll see how things go as it gets warmer.”

They’re starting to settle into a set menu and plan to add more items as they go.

Street Bite’s signature dish is Street Chicken, a Thai-inspired curry chicken served with rice, cilantro and a slice of lime.

They usually offer the Road Hog, which is pulled pork with a blueberry barbecue sauce and a ginger pineapple slaw on a toasted bun, and the Dakota Dip, a roast beef sandwich served with au jus.

They made soup the first few weeks, but that won’t be back until fall, along with their gourmet hot chocolate. For now, they’re offering frozen hot cocoa. Other daily sweet treats will rotate depending on the season. Recent offerings have included oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and banana bread.

“We both are very creative when it comes to cooking and baking,” Benthin said. “So we like to switch it up a lot.”

Another addition with warmer weather will be “Nite Bites,” or late-night hours on weekend nights with smaller portions and cheaper prices.

“We want people to be able to pull up late in the night, grab a snack, grab a “Bite,” to eat at a reasonable price,” Huntimer said.

The friends post menu updates and changes in hours on the Street Bite Facebook page and on Instagram at @streetbite22. They also have a website: streetbite.us. 

Benthin said her baking skills are self-taught, and she gained experience working as the baker for a coffee shop in Madison for two years. Huntimer spent three years in the kitchen of The Goss Opera House in Watertown.

The path to their own business “started out just serving our friends out of our kitchen for meals,” Huntimer said. “More and more people started saying we should do a food truck.”

They got to know the former Food Mama operators while exercising at the same fitness center, she said, and that connection led to them taking over the trailer with their behind-the-scenes partner, Vishnu Nellore.

“We’ve always had people that have admired our baking or cooking, so that was kind of an inspiration behind it,” Benthin said of starting Street Bite. “Now, we get to feed a whole community, so it’s grown into something pretty cool.”

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