There’s no October night breeze or carnival rides to top the experience, but for fans of corn dogs, funnel cakes, turkey legs, cotton candy and the like, the food’s enough at this week’s Fair Food Drive-In at the Extraco Events Center.

Nine fair food vendors, their trucks decked out with eye-catching flags, lights and specialties spelled out in colorful lettering, have set up camp through Sunday in the Extraco Events Center’s west parking lot, accessible at Lake Air Drive.

They’ll serve food normally available on the midway at the Heart O’ Texas Fair in October: chicken on a stick, cheese fries, hamburgers, tacos, funnel cakes, snowcones, cotton candy, pizza, caramel apples and even Italian ice.

Customers can drive to the parking lot, walk to the food trucks spaced apart and with lines allowing social distancing between customers, order their food and take it home in containers. Employees will be masked and gloved, with hand sanitizing and hand washing stations on the site. Admission is free and both cash and credit cards are accepted.

Charva Ingram, fair vice president for marketing and sponsorship development, said the idea came from the Louisiana State Fair, which staged a similar event earlier this month to help fair vendors recoup a little money lost from spring fair and festival cancellations due to COVID-19 containment measures.

HOT Fair organizers saw a chance to recover income lost by its food vendors and cancellation of Extraco Events Center activities over the last two months. If this weekend’s food fair proves successful, it may return in the future, she added.

This year’s Heart O’ Texas Fair and Rodeo is scheduled for Oct. 8-18. “We’re planning for a full fair and rodeo . . . We’ll do what we need to do to to ensure the safety of our guests,” Ingram said.

—WACOTRIB