A freshman at the University of Kansas is opening El Zócalo, a Mexican food truck centered on birria dishes, to help her pay for nursing school.

Destiny Lopez, a 19-year-old nursing student, worked at her parents’ original El Zócalo food truck in Topeka as a high school student from the truck’s opening in 2022 to her start at KU in the fall. 

Destiny is set to open and manage the family business’s second truck in Lawrence. Her truck’s official opening is set for 5 to 9 p.m. Thursday, April 9 in the parking lot at Cork & Barrel Wine and Spirits, 1801 W. 23rd St.

Friday, April 10 will share the same hours as Thursday. Hours will shift to 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. during the opening weekend, all in the same parking lot.

The menu will be identical to the original truck in Topeka, which blends beef birria with other cuisines. Birria is a Mexican meat stew that’s slow cooked with a variety of spices.

Along with classic quesabirria tacos, the menu will feature ramen, egg rolls, pizza and more with birria at the core of almost every item on the menu.

Destiny said she is pursuing her dream after recently being accepted into the KU School of Nursing in Kansas City and Kappa Delta Chi, a Latina-founded sorority. Both experiences will be directly funded by her truck.

Destiny said she always knew she wanted to become a nurse, but she found it challenging to adjust to KU as a first-generation college student away from family most of the time.

“I feel like a lot of people couldn’t relate to me, because I just felt like everybody’s parents had already been to school, and they knew kind of the route that they were going,” Destiny said. “So, I had to seek just other resources.”

Though her nursing program will be in Kansas City, she said the truck will stay exclusive to Lawrence for the time being.

She said she feels supported by the KU student community in her goal to open the truck. She said she wants to integrate it further into KU culture by bringing it to football game tailgates and sorority events. She’s already signed the truck up to attend city events such as Lawrence’s Fourth of July celebration. 

Destiny’s parents started El Zócalo, naming it after the main city square of Mexico City.

Her mother, Nancy Lopez, who emigrated from Mexico City, said she wanted to provide an opportunity to her daughter that would let her chase her dreams and aspirations.

“Me and my husband wanted to work as hard as we could to be able to provide for our kids,” Nancy said. “She’s helped us since the very beginning. We opened our food truck, and I trust her. I know how she is such a hardworking person, how dedicated she is in anything that she does.” 

Her parents funded most of the truck’s initial costs and will help her staff it in the opening months, while longtime staff temporarily take over the location in Topeka.

Destiny said once she has a handle on operations and a steady base of customers, she will completely take over duties from her parents. She hopes to hire other KU students to replace them.

The Lawrence El Zócalo food truck has more information on social media and can be found on a food truck app called mobile Munch, a Topeka based app that tracks food trucks.

Logan Pierson (he/him), reporting intern with The Lawrence Times since December 2025, is a senior journalism and photography student at the University of Kansas. He previously contributed to the University Daily Kansan as a senior reporter and beat reporter.

Read his work for the Times here.

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