MARFA, Texas – This town has one bank, one pizza place, one coffee shop, one laundry, one radio station, one bookshop – basically one of everything, except for the things of which it has none: billboards, pet stores, chain stores, clothing stores, bowling alleys and traffic lights.

ALLISON V. SMITH/Special Contributor

The Food Shark offers more than the regular lunch-truck fare: mole- rubbed pork tacos, homemade falafel, veggie panini.

Which makes it an unlikely tourist destination.

But travelers come to this wide, still corner of West Texas for its art – three museums and nine galleries perched beneath wide blue skies.

Wallace Shawn came down for the opening of one of his plays, and some of indie rock 'n' roll's biggest names – Yo La Tengo, Wilco, Sonic Youth – have played here.

No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood were filmed here, which made actor Daniel Day Lewis (of the latter film) a regular jogger up and down the main drag, Highland Avenue, for a while.

It's still largely a ranching town, but within that town exists this strange art burg that persists against the odds.

Much like mornings and evenings in this high-desert town, afternoons are sleepy and not much happens. About lunchtime, a faded, silver, 1974 Butter-Krust brand bread truck blasting tinny 1970s FM hits becomes the town's cultural, social and culinary center.

Parked in a gravel lot along Marfa's quiet main drag, the Food Shark offers an unlikely bounty of fast food: homemade falafel, mole-rubbed pork tacos, fresh veggie panini, triple-chocolate espresso cookies baked that morning.

The biggest surprise, however, comes in your change. It's a $2 bill. That little scrap of currency is what makes Food Shark unlike so many lunch trucks and Marfa unlike so many towns of 1,887.

"I figure when someone is walking around and they look in their wallet and they see that, they'll think of us," said Adam Bork, 38, an artist and musician who started Food Shark with his girlfriend two years ago.

And there you have Marfa, deep in the mountain desert belly of West Texas and three hours from a major airport. It is always performing, always surprising, always subtly weird. When you go

The Food Shark

Under the pavilion between the railroad tracks and Marfa Book Co. in the town center. Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday to Friday. Lunch under $15. www.foodsharkmarfa.com

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