Valpo High grad feeding hungry football fans at Super Bowl XLVI

INDIANAPOLIS | That Tacos Without Borders food truck on Monument Circle has become a watering hole at the oasis, with hungry visitors diving in.

It belongs to Ryan Krcmarich, a 1996 Valparaiso High School graduate who one day could sign a book deal and star on his own celebrity cooking show.

The guy's that accomplished.

Hungry visitors and fans at the Super Bowl Village appear to agree after sampling Krcmarich's tasty cuisine.

"I wanted to challenge myself and basically jump off a cliff doing something I didn't know how to do and basically learn on the fly," he said. "I wanted to put my own life in my own hands."

This is Krcmarich's second year operating a mobile food truck in Indianapolis. He also does extensive catering, specializing in popular ethnic foods.

"The Super Bowl stuff has been quite hectic. It's a tremendous volume of people," he said. "Most Super Bowls like in Miami or Dallas are spread out over a 20-mile square radius with different events staged in different places, whereas in Indy, it's pretty much downtown. There's 150,000 people downtown, but I'm a people person and absolutely love being out there."

It's been a long journey to Nap Town for the 34-year-old, who graduated from Xavier University, earned his master's, lived in six different states and visited close to 25 others while doing campaign work for the Democratic Party — before devoting his life to food.

"My whole goal is to get people to try new ethnic foods through the comfort of a tortilla," Krcmarich said. "I do about 15 different tacos. I've got three different African tacos, Korean barbecue, Chinese barbecue, Indian and Jamaican jerk ... South American.

"I'm having a blast. It's a lot of work, a lot of hours, but to me it doesn't even feel like a job. It's just so much fun. I love cooking and being around people."

He hopes to one day open his own restaurant. Krcmarich wouldn't divulge what he might earn this week in Indianapolis.

There were two food trucks in Indianapolis when Krcmarich opened for business in 2010. Today, there are 36, with more coming this spring.

"It's just exploded," he said.

Krcmarich has been so busy, he had to pass on a close college friend's seven-day wedding in New Delhi, India, where he had been asked to do the catering.

Last year, there was college buddy's wedding in Jordan he couldn't make.

This cliff jumping seems to have really paid off.