Last Chiefs vs. Eagles Super Bowl win helped KC food truck level up: ‘A good luck charm’

Irvin Der remembers the heated moments the last time the Kansas City Chiefs faced off the Philadelphia Eagles.

He snuck glimpses of the game when people cheered and in-between orders, but he spent most of that fateful night hustling to feed the antsy crowd.

That Super Bowl watch party in the Power & Light District was the first time he tested out his brand new food truck, Irvzilla’s Hawaiian Grill. He didn’t know what to expect or if he’d be able to pull it off, but he knew the entertainment district was packed full of hungry, hopeful fans.

Fortunately, everything worked out for both Der and the Chiefs. Almost three years after starting his business, the team is headed to the Super Bowl for a potentially historic third consecutive win.

“We’re indirectly a good luck charm,” Der joked before the team won the AFC Championship. “We’re definitely going to do our best to be there.”

Der, the son of well-known Kansas City, Kansas chef Annie Der, who owns Tao Tao in downtown KCK uses his background in Chinese cuisine to create his spin on Hawaiian recipes. From spring rolls and crab rangoons to shrimp and chicken fingers, Der has brought what he calls Hawaiian Bros on wheels.

Now he’s hoping to be back to Power & Light to feed those watching the Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles (again).

When Der’s not at city festivals or rooting for the Chiefs, he’s at Callsign Brewery in North Kansas City with his business partners Lori Stuteville and Sergio Gonzalez, the owners of Coco Loco Grill, another food truck in Kansas City.

When they’re on wheels, the two food trucks operate separately as Irvzilla and Coco Loco in their own trucks.

But when they’re together at Callsign, they call themselves LocoZilla, a mash-up in not just names, but food too. Their staff is trained to cook food from Irvzilla’s Hawaiian Grill, Coco Loco Grill and their Americana menu.

Back in 2023, the two trucks parked near each other on the job, and the owners hit it off.

When Callsign asked Der if he wanted to serve customers in the brewery’s brand-new brick and mortar location, he knew he couldn’t do it alone. He asked Gonzalez and Stuteville if they’d be willing to partner with him.

“It made more sense just to partner up,” said Stuteville. “We both have the same passion, so let’s partner up and make this happen.”

Like Der, Gonzalez and Stuteville were not only Chiefs fans, but their business also got a boost from the team when they fed them for their training camp in the fall.

Also like Der, Sergio’s background in Mexican street food comes from his childhood in Mexico City, where he worked alongside bakers since he was 10 years old.

Kansas City has been his home since he moved to the United States in 1998. One of the first things he noticed was the “Tex Mex” food, which usually included fajitas and nachos. He started to look into adapting the Tex Mex food, which usually isn’t popular south of the Mexican border, into the flavors from his childhood in Mexico City.

“It’s expensive to try to open your own restaurant, lease the place out, do something so, you know, why not something small like this,” he said.

Der said working during the Super Bowl had a beauty to it: the fast work environment, drinking, the celebration and fireworks.

“The beauty of it is, it’s history,” he said. “That’s what we like about it. Being here there as they literally make history.”

Now that the Chiefs are headed for a three-peat, looking ahead Der’s working to focus on the physical location and more opportunities on wheels.

This story was originally published February 5, 2025 at 6:00 AM.