THE PEARL
Samantha Raumaker and her husband Brandon Bogle are the masterminds behind one of Kerrville’s newest food trucks, The Pearl.
“It’s not very often that you find a pearl or something kind of unique, different and rare so that’s where the name came from,” Bogle said. “Because we do everything from scratch. We grind our own meat, and I use beef tallow instead of seed oil. We want to keep everything as natural as possible.”
Bogle and Raumaker had taken over the Bayou Cajun Café in Kerrville before it closed its doors in the summer of 2023.
“I thought, well we were running that restaurant with just the two of us and doing a lot of business,” said Bogle. “I thought we should invest in ourselves for a change.”
The Pearl opened its truck doors last July serving up Cajun inspired items, tacos, brisket and other seafood and southern favorites.
“My wife’s always been in the restaurant industry as a server or manger, so I decided that I was going to try it out and fell in love with cooking,” Bogle said. “It’s just been a passion.”
The Pearl’s menu includes boudin balls, redfish tacos, smoked shrimp tacos, fried catfish, po boys, shrimp alfredo, loaded baked potatoes, chopped brisket sandwiches, brisket quesadillas and brisket burgers.
“I can’t keep those redfish tacos in stock,” Bogle said.
The burgers are made with prime brisket angus patties and are served on Hawaiian buns.
Each entrée comes with Cajun fries that are cooked in 100% beef tallow. Traditionally used for frying before the widespread adoption of vegetable oils, beef tallow’s high smoke point allows for less greasy and crispier results.
The menu rotates depending on the food supply. Although for those needing their fried catfish fix, it is a menu staple.
Salmon salad is often a special menu item, and each Sunday The Pearl hosts a seafood boil at its permanent location at the Ingram Dam, 610 Texas 39.
The Pearl’s hours at the Ingram Dam are noon-4 p.m. Wednesdays, noon–7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and noon-4 p.m. Sundays. On Thursdays, the food truck travels to various locations.
To learn more and discover locations and menu items for the day, call 830-496-1534 or visit the food truck’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/thepearlfoodtruck.
TAQUITOS BAUTISTA
Joanna Bautista, with some help from her sister Janeth, has been at the helm of Taquitos Bautista since 2019.
“I was working at a local taqueria full-time, and realized I didn’t have much time to spend with my daughter who was 2 or 3 at the time,” Bautista said. “So, I thought maybe I should open a food truck to have more time to spend with her.”
Bautista’s mother’s birria recipe was the inspiration for the food truck’s cuisine. The recipe includes brisket meat.
“It’s my mom’s recipe,” she said. “We originally started with the birria tacos and have continued to add menu items from there like the torta, grilled cheese and Tapatio birria ramen.”
Birria ramen originated in Mexico City circa 2015. Celebrity chef Antonio de Livier is credited with creating the dish, which he initially named "Birriamen" and added to his restaurant menu at Ánimo Ay Caldos!. The dish combines the traditional Mexican birria stew with ramen noodles, resulting in a fusion of flavors.
“Instead of making it with boiling water, we put the broth from the birria in the ramen and make it that way,” Bautista said.
Other menu items include quesabirria tacos, shrimp birra tacos, street tacos and aquas frescas, which includes the following flavors: horchata, strawberry, pineapple, cucumber and mango. In the winter, menudo and pozole are added to the menu.
When asked about plans for the future, Bautista said she’d eventually like to open her own brick and mortar restaurant.
In the meantime, catch the Taquitos Bautista food truck at its permanent location from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday and Saturday at 3051 Junction Highway.
Taquitos Bautista also caters and provides family bundles.
“We do graduations, weddings, quinceaneras, birthday parties and all kinds of events,” Bautista said.
To learn more about Taquitos Bautista, call 830-370-1942 or visit the food truck’s Facebook page at Taquitos Bautista.
SHIM’S BE BLESSED
Shonna and Tim Foster owned a catering company in New Mexico before they arrived in Kerrville in 2021.
“I love to cook, and people kept asking me to cater certain events,” Shonna Foster said. “Really the reason we ended up getting a food trailer was to have a commercial kitchen to do the catering.”
As the couple made the transition to Kerrville they found themselves living in an RV at Johnson Creek RV Resort and Park in Ingram for a year before they secured a house.
“We just parked our food trailer in one of the RV spots and pretty much just fed the people that were in the RV park,” she said. “Then we started getting a lot of people coming in from Kerrville and Bandera.”
Having sold their previous catering company, the Fosters needed to come up with a new name.
“My Granny used to always say, ‘Be blessed’ all the time, so that’s what we named our catering company in New Mexico.” Foster said. “To keep it from getting confused when we opened in Kerrville we added “Shim’s” to it. It’s a combination of mine and my husband’s names.”
Shim’s Be Blessed frequently operates out of the Trailhead Beer Garden on the Schreiner University Campus at 2100 Memorial Blvd. The truck is equipped with a commercial fridge, large smoker on the back and a wood-fired pizza oven. Everything is made from scratch.
Foster, who credits her grandmother as the one who really taught her how to cook, is constantly creating in the kitchen, and patrons may never know what they might find on the menu.
“I’ll look in the refrigerator and be like, ‘Oh well, this will go good together,’” she said.
The truck specializes in gourmet burgers, and the newest one on offer is the Hot Mess Express.
“It has a deep-fried piece of jalapeno cream cheese on it,” Foster said. “We also go down to New Mexico and get all our green and red chili for green chili cheeseburgers and Navajo tacos. It’s been fun bringing New Mexico to Texas.”
The newest sweeter item on the menu for the summer is homemade lemon ice cream served in a cup made from half a lemon.
“We just started a full dessert menu,” Foster said. “We do Dubai chocolate bars, Dubai strawberry cups, Dubai brownies, and we have the cookies and cream and mint chocolate chip sundaes.”
In 2024, TikTok made Dubai chocolate a viral hit. The chocolate has a distinctive filling with a combination of pistachios and kataifi, or shredded phyllo pastry.
Foster also caters and fills take and bake orders.
“For the take and bake orders, I try to do them once a month. You can find the menu on our Facebook page,” Foster said. “I do all kinds of different things including green chili scalloped potatoes, enchiladas, Spanish rice and beans.”
For questions about catering or take and bake orders, call 830-777-6977. Payment must be made upon ordering for take and bake items.
Shim’s Be Blessed is open at the Trailhead Beer Garden from 5-9 p.m. Wednesdays, 5-9 p.m. Thursdays, noon-9 p.m. Saturdays and noon-6 p.m. Sundays.
Wednesdays are wood-fired grilled pizza nights. The pizzas are made with a house made 72-hour slow rise dough and baked on the truck’s wood-fired pizza oven. Thursdays are gourmet burger nights that feature a special which includes two burgers and two orders of fries for $20.
To learn more about Shim’s Be Blessed, call 830-777-6977 or visit the food truck’s Facebook page at Shim’s Be Blessed Catering & Food Trailer – TX Hill Country.
OTHER GRUB
Munchy Machine in the backyard of Basement Brewers of Texas at 521 Clay St. serves up a wide array of fresh food and weekly specials. To learn more, visit the food truck’s Facebook page at Munch Machine-Food Trailer. Hours for Basement Brewers of Texas are 5-9 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and noon-7 p.m. Sundays.
Tacos Antonio at 3269 Junction Highway in Ingram serves up everything from breakfast tacos and burritos to tortas and quesadillas. Hours are 6 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday-Friday and 7 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturdays. To learn more, call 830-431-2983.
This article was originally published in the June 2025 edition of Hill Country Culture Magazine.
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