Widespread Daves

These guys were super kind and accommodating to my kids food allergies and gave us great service.

Food is awesome. service is awesome. Sticking to posted hours/​not selling out of a lot of the food, not so awesome. Why do food trucks think its not a big deal to be closed for a day? Was told they were closed to do prep for a big event the next day. No notice on facebook or anything, just closed. if youre always selling out or having to close for prep sounds like you need to hire more people. Ive been 3 times. got exactly what I wanted once. Ill go back again but now I feel ill have to call every time, which is not something you should have to do when a truck doesnt move and has posted hours.

I ate 1 Firecracker shrimp here and it was pretty tasty. Came for Truck X Truckwest, and while the sample was good, it felt like something they were forced to do in that they gave out the smallest amount of their food to sample possible. I wish they were offering up a bit more as part of the event to sample as there is so much to choose from at Midway Trailer Food Park alone, that even when I go back, I’d lean towards some of the other places who offered a bit more food or variety to try and I know I liked them, while this place was pricier and I’d loved to have gotten a better feel for their menu before plonking down for their slightly higher priced fare.

I visited Widespread Dave’s last night as part of Austin’s Truck and Trailer food festival Truck By TruckWest. Their signature dish for the competition was their Firecracker Shrimp. It’s a flash fried gulf shrimp tossed in a spicy sweet chili sauce, served with a crunchy ginger slaw.
The slaw was excellent. Too often a slaw will sit in it’s sauce or pickling fluid too long so as to become wilted and soft and when you take a forkful it’s a disappointing squishy bite of limp and uninspiring texture, even when the flavor is outstanding due to clever sauce/​brine. Well this was NOT the case here. The slaw was fresh like it was picked today and crisp as iceberg lettuce from the drawer. Every ingredient was flavorful and cut to a good counterbalancing size in comparison to it’s co-​ingredients. Resulting in a refreshingly snappy, spring-​time impression that was entirely above expectation. Definitely worth having again!
The shrimp was, as you would expect, the masterpiece here though and it was so for two main reasons. The first being that it was cooked to the most advantage for the meat. Shrimp is sooo easy to overcook to rubberiness, thus losing that soft, fresh seafood texture that you can often only get at dockside seafood establishments. This shrimp was boiled or fried to just the perfect point where the fresh texture was entirely intact and the experience was wholly rich and satisfactory.
Now the spicy sweet chili sauce! It was tremendous. I thought it must have a Sriracha base to it. And it had that excellent flavor of the Spicy Mayo you find served at a lot of Sushi places. It was smooth, creamy, spicy, hot and it had an assertive but not annoying or overpowering lingering after-​bite flavor that stayed with you in a supportive and reminiscent way without leaving you feeling like you’d just been tongue-​slapped with peppers. It was the perfect combination flavor for the well prepared fresh shrimp flavor that was a total package of surprising quality and ingenuity that set Dave’s apart from some brick and mortar restaurants I’ve visited in town. Well done and good show! I will be back with other friends to spread the word.

Update: This food trailer is no longer part of this park, but The Midway Food Park is still alive and kicking. A great outdoor venue with plenty of food variety. Kid-​friendly and BYOB :-)

Only tried one item here, «Austin’s best crab cakes». You get 2 small-​medium crab cakes with a small slaw for $ 10. If the price point was say, $ 7 – 8, this would be a 5 star review. But value is also a part of rating a place for myself.
With that said, this was definitely the BEST crab cakes I’ve had in my life. The cakes had a perfect crispy exterior, with an awesome crab filled interior. Not one of those lame ass crab cakes that has a ton of breading/​fillers. You get big chunks of crab in these babies.
I would definitely eat at Widespread Daves again. Relatively fast service as well. Look forward to trying their much talked about dip sandwich.

See edit at end of review!
Okay — I am reading these reviews (cuz Im gonna post mine) and now I feel like the fifth dentist… «four out of five dentist agree…»
100% of the times that we have attempted to try this place, it has failed me. Now, to be honest, we have only gone twice, but the percentage still stands.
Our last visit went like this: Hongry. Lunchtime (actually around 1130) — Get to the trailer park and while checking out the trucks came upon this one (again). It appeared closed, but when asked, we were told, «We open @ 12»…
Twelve o clock came… and went
1230… by this time we had passed this option by
1:00… I assumed it was still closed because…
by 1:40p we drove past and it was STILL not open!
Again, there was a guy there prepping food, seriously, when we first arrived.
Oh well, maybe the third times the charm…
6÷3÷14 EDIT: I received the following from a representative of WD’s:
I don’t know how you can review a place that was not open yet. We at Widespread Daves prep fresh food daily and stay open until it is sold out. We do no believe in cutting corners. We are sorry you didn’t get a chance to try our award winning fare. We also hope that when you do you give us an honest review. But in the meantime we will be treating Westlake to many more sell outs.
The Daves
— Sending a private message and not business owner public message? — party foul!
— This situation could have been resolved by simply setting the customers expectation. «We won’t be open till this afternoon» would have prompted a different choice… another establishment or coming back later, and no harm no foul. But to say «Opening at noon» and not opening at all… party foul!
Still I am hopeful that the third times the charm…

I always feel like I need to start with the atmosphere in my reviews but that doesn’t really work for a food truck. Just because I was enjoying Widespread Daves’ food surrounded by beautiful live oaks doesn’t mean you won’t be enjoying this on the base of an active volcano or perhaps eating it off the forehead of a Ted Danson look-​alike. I mean, these seem like rare possibilities, but I hate to presume.
So let’s skip the atmosphere, and move on to what matters: the food. After a little deliberating, I went with the chicken sandwich which was at the top of their «…with Bread» section and it was really tasty. The chicken was moist and perfectly cooked, the cheese was melted nicely and the fried pickles added a real nice touch of salt, brine and crunch to compliment the sweet and soft bun. Finally, it came with a side of fancy mustard which added that extra pizazz that this sandwich needed to take it from 4 to 5 stars.
I coupled my sandwich with a nice Dublin root beer and paid around $ 12 for it all which I was able to pay with a credit card. Not super cheap but not expensive either and I didn’t have to pay with cash (which I didn’t have anyway). I will definitely be going back, unless of course they move to a natural disaster zone or a place inhabited by old sitcom look-​alikes.

My buddies own this trailer and I am definitely not posting this just because of that but the prime rib dip is literally the best sandwich I have ever eaten in my life time and I have eaten a lot of different sandwiches from a lot of different places. Also I have never been a fan of shallots or pickled jalapenos (only fresh jalapenos) and, no joke, they make the sandwich so delicious. I would recommend this to anyone any day of the week. Good job guys!!!

This was one of the best food trailers I’ve been to its like going some where fancy but with out the high cost. Love the shrimp.