One of America’s Wildest Food Trucks Is in So. Illinois

Food truck culture has found its way across the entirety of the United States. You can find delicious food served from a truck in almost any town, anywhere. The food has always been the draw when you decide to dine from a food truck…but things are changing.

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There’s also a new angle emerging: the unique vehicle serving the food. Tastingtable.com put together a list of the most unique food trucks in the USA, and one from Illinois has been included.

The Space Shuttle Café looks like a mini version of one of the legendary NASA cargo vehicles made from a World War II C-47 cargo plane. There are no wings. Instead, it was built onto a school bus frame, and has a full-service kitchen inside including flattops, fryers, a grill, freezers and even a shake machine.

Flock Food Truck Park in Alton, Illinois

Originally constructed in the 1970s and modified to look like a space shuttle in the 1980s it toured across Europe. After that, it sat in the California desert until it was renovated and sold to an entrepreneur in New York who converted it into a food truck. COVID-19 shut it down and it was sold to a couple in Swansea, Illinois in 2021. Now it has set up shop in Alton, Illinois, at the Flock food truck park near the riverfront, which will open for the 2026 season soon. Look for the Space Shuttle Café in the lineup.