À La Cart SoDo Solved the Group-Dinner Argument
Eight resident food trucks, one lawn, one bar — plus a pizza truck with a citywide ranking. À La Cart's bigger second location, on Michigan Street, reviewed.
3 minute read
Every group dinner dies the same death: one person wants sushi, one wants a burger, one is keeping a small child alive on fries alone. À La Cart SoDo, at 2207 E. Michigan St. in SoDo, is the concept built to end that negotiation — eight semi-permanent food trucks arranged around a central lawn, one craft-beer bar, and a standing invitation to let everybody order from a different kitchen and eat at the same table.
From the Milk District to Michigan Street
À La Cart began in Orlando’s Milk District, where owners April and Dustin Williams turned the food-truck park into a permanent, curated fixture — semi-permanent vendors rather than a rotating cast of strangers, with a proper bar and real seating. The SoDo location, their second, opened on May 1, 2024, and went bigger: critic Scott Joseph’s opening assessment noted eight vendors — three more than the original — surrounding a larger central lawn of artificial grass with patio tables and shade umbrellas, and a mix spanning Spanish, Mexican, Filipino-Hawaiian, sushi, burgers, pizza and German cooking. The Date Night Guide’s opening coverage added the detail drivers care about: roughly three times the parking of the Milk District original.
The vendor lineup documented at opening tells the story of the place: OverRice for Filipino-Hawaiian plates, 503 Latin Fusion, SmashDunk Brgr, Taitō Sushi, Barrio Español, Oldenburg Provisions for German fare — and the truck that gives this address its ranking weight, Nona Street Pizza. Because the trucks are residents rather than guests, the cooking has a consistency that event-based food-truck rallies rarely achieve; these are small restaurants that happen to have wheels in their past.
Nona Street Pizza: the truck with a ranking
Nona Street Pizza holds the No. 6 spot in our Best Pizza in Orlando rankings with a Net Score of 91.9 — a food truck, outscoring most of the city’s dining rooms. Founder and chef Andrés Maldonado, profiled by PMQ’s Latinos en Pizza series, describes a from-scratch discipline: naturally fermented dough, handcrafted sauces, no shortcuts. His signature pie is the Tripleta, inspired by Puerto Rico’s tripleta sandwich — chimichurri, mozzarella, grilled steak, roasted pork and chicken, mayo-ketchup and crunchy potato sticks — a pie that could only come from a kitchen thinking in two food cultures at once. The Spicy Pepperoni and the shop’s fried starters, including queso frito and fried dough, round out an order. Nona’s presence also makes À La Cart the east anchor of Michigan Street’s pizza story, bookending SoDough Square’s Detroit-style squares at the street’s west end — compare both in Where to Eat in SoDo.
How to work the lawn
À La Cart opens daily in the late morning — 11:30 a.m. is the documented daily start — and runs into the evening, later on weekends. The house system is part of the concept’s polish: drinks come from the central bar rather than the trucks, so a round of craft beer and a spread of four cuisines lands as one coherent outing instead of four transactions and a parking lot. The lawn format handles groups, kids and indecision with equal ease, and the site’s bike rack makes it a realistic ride-to dinner from the surrounding neighborhoods.
Two honest notes. First, lineups evolve — vendors at a food-truck park change over time, so check the current roster on À La Cart’s site before promising a specific truck to a specific person. Second, one event listing for the SoDo location notes that pets are not permitted on the property, so plan the dog’s evening elsewhere — our SoDo dogs and parks guide has the alternatives. For everyone else, this is the easiest group dinner in the district: park once at 2207 E. Michigan St., claim a table under an umbrella, and let the group scatter and reconvene. Find it via the SoDo hub and the Orlando Top Spots Map.
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