Text and Photos
By Shari Benyousky
Guest Columnist

Column Note: This is the 29th column in the Diners and Dives series in which a small group of Warsaw Breakfast Optimist Club members and their guests road trip to explore the restaurants of Kosciusko and the surrounding area.

WARSAW — The Tacos Jalisco Truck is a Warsaw staple. You’ll find it parked under a tall tree at 1215 N Detroit St., just north of Advance Auto. At lunchtime, you choose your food from the menus posted and order through the truck window. Both credit or cash are welcome, and the truck boasts a huge selection of meats to choose from including asada (beef), adobada (marinated pork), lengua (beef tongue), cabeza (head), carnitas (pork), buchez (pork stomach), pollo (chicken), barbacoa (marinated beef), and birria (goat).

On a warmish fall Friday at noon, we made our choices and clustered around the picnic tables in the shade to hear a few good stories.

The Trumpeter

Every Wednesday morning, we regulars arrive at the Warsaw Breakfast Optimist Club around 6:30 a.m. for breakfast. As our bleary eyes enter the door, lovely singing greets us. That’s right, the Optimist Singers arrive even earlier than the rest of us just for the pleasure of music and Director Marty Becker’s instruction. The singers are good. Really good. Sometimes they perform for the club (the next time will be a program for Veterans Day on Nov. 8 at the Shrine Building at the Fairgrounds if you would like to come). Sometimes Marty pulls out his trumpet to accompany the singers. The pure silver sound of it always makes me shiver.

Martin Becker wasn’t always the highly successful director of bands at the Warsaw Community High School (1986–2002), Marty was once well-known as the bugler of River Downs (now Belterra Racing Park near Cincinnati). He wore riding pants, black boots, and a jaunty red jacket, and he carried a really long instrument.

“Have I told you my most embarrassing story with that?” Optimist Member Marty asked as he arranged the cilantro on his tacos. “My first summer I didn’t realize how important I was to the entire horse race.” He took a bite of taco. “Mmmm, that’s a great taco. When you go out with the bugle in hand, you make a bit of a flourish up to the clubhouse and then to the grandstand. I was supposed to play the Call to the Post at exactly 9 minutes before the start of the race. This tells the announcers and, more importantly, the bettors that it’s the last call.

“Well, this particular day when I made that twirl with the bugle, my mouthpiece flew off and landed in the track behind me. But I didn’t know it, so, when I put the bugle up to my mouth, nothing happened. No notes. And no one knew the race was about to begin. By the time I figured it out, the horses were already pounding down the track. You can imagine how I was scolded for THAT!”

1st Source Banker Paul Finley chuckled. “What did you do to avoid that in the future?”

Marty smiled. “From then on, I always carried an extra mouthpiece in my pocket. When the jockeys weren’t hiding the mouthpieces or stuffing my horn, that is. Some of them hated me because I practiced out in the barn, and they wanted to sleep between races.” He looked out at Center Lake behind us for a moment. “You know how many times I played that Call to the Post? 9 or 10 races a day for three summers. I once figured out that I played that thing more than 10,000 times in public!”

The Tool Guy

Our other wildcard guest wasn’t an Optimist. Well, he hasn’t finished the application process, so he isn’t an Optimist yet anyway. Ken Shamblen listened patiently as he tried a new Mexican food, the Beef Sopes which is a street snack made of a corn tortilla shaped like a cup and filled with beef, cheese, lettuce, and onion.

“For my own curiosity, where did you first run across the Optimists when you moved to town?” REMAX realtor Jeff Owens asked.

Ken thought for a moment. He turned to Podcaster Chris Plack who was simultaneously trying out all three of the hot sauces provided. “I know I talked to Chris at the Optimist Triathlon. I heard about that. Then I volunteered to help deliver the fall displays last weekend and met several of the rest of you. What a cool group!”

“Sweat equity pays off,” Plack nodded. Optimist members volunteer to do fall display deliveries, which involve lugging around hay bales, corn shocks, and heavy pumpkins and gourds so sweat equity wasn’t kidding. But all the money earned from the displays is for local kids, so we don’t mind too much.

“Ken, what do you do then?” Funeral Planner Brittany Lyons asked from the end of the table. She had to lean to hear as road noise next to the taco truck can get intense at times.

“I work for Snap-on Tools Credit,” Ken told us. “Those tool trucks that deliver specialty tools? You’ve seen them, right? We help train franchisees and get them the credit they need for tool purchases for their customers.”

I rearranged the last half of my birria (goat) burrito, so I didn’t spill more filling upon myself, and asked, “So, are you good at fixing your own car?”

“Nope!” Ken smiled. “Nope.”

“But he’s really good at loaning you money so you can fix your own car!” REMAX Jeff winked.

“Exactly!” Ken agreed. “That’s what Snap-On does. We help YOU get your car fixed. There actually are some franchisee territories available nearby. A driver usually has about 300 customers although the geographical footprint varies depending on if they are in a city or out.”

“And how much does that cost?” Jeff adjusted his REMAX ballcap.

“Franchise costs are 225K all in with the truck,” Ken answered. “I get that happening and sometimes I even ride along and do training.” We returned to finishing the food on our plates. Having the sauces nearby meant that I could squirt each and every bite just right.

Brittany and Plack revisited the Taco truck for dessert — in this case, sour punch straws. The truck boasts a wide variety of soda and candy to grab on your way back to work. We had to get back to work too.

Come visit us on Wednesday morning at the Shrine Building in the Fairgrounds. We would love to have to join us before you head to work. You can say one of us sponsored you. Actually, you can say that Shari Benyousky sponsored you.

Do you know of an interesting place, restaurant, nonprofit, or person that you’d like to see featured in Dives and Diners or in Profiles behind the scenes someday? Send SB Communications LLC an email at [email protected].