A food truck … for science? Denver’s Curiosity Cruiser serves up spiciness, brain teasers on the road

There’s a good chance you’ve already seen the Curiosity Cruiser — a brightly painted truck and trailer that splits the difference between an ice cream truck and a food truck — motoring around metro Denver.

If you haven’t, you’ll likely recognize its format. Like most food trucks, this Denver Museum of Nature & Science mobile lab pops up in seemingly random locations with offerings for all ages. It serves up experiences rather than products, such as Flavorology, which whisks visitors through “an interactive adventure” in the five tastes (bitter, spicy, umami, sweet and sour).

As the Curiosity Cruiser gears up for 2023, it’s expanding its offerings. In addition to Flavorology and the team-based puzzle experience Wonder-osity, educators this summer will add “Spicy: Revealed,” which dares both kids and adults to enter the world of spicy flavors and foods “and our curious relationship with them,” as well as the soon-to-launch Mood & Food.

Museum officials launched Curiosity Cruiser two years ago and have been working on the project for the last five years. They’ve invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into buying and customizing their energy-efficient electric trailer, which can run for six hours without a generator. They’re planning to double the number of site visits from the previous year, from 33 to 62, and further embed Curiosity Cruiser in the communities it serves.

After all, museum officials said, not everyone can travel to or even afford a visit to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. But the museum is more than just its building.

“We interviewed more than 300 people statewide and the feedback we got was, ‘We love the museum and we love going, but if you can come to us I promise we’re going to love you a lot more,’ ” said Daniel Ville Rodriguez, manager of community engagement at DMNS. “So it’s an appendix of the museum.”

Curiosity Cruiser has already started operating for the year, and people can track where it’s going on the museum’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pages.

A lot depends on weather, since the Cruiser is both an indoor and outdoor experience, Rodriguez said. People can choose which experience they want, then take their time doing it. That requires dry, relatively warm weather for the space to graze, but also a steady supply of willing participants and professional educators from the museum.

Last year, Curiosity Cruiser served about 8,000 people directly, and Rodriguez hopes to reach up to 20,000 this year. The pop-up can be rented by private and commercial groups for $2,000 to $2,500 for up to five hours, and for $800 by nonprofits and government agencies. It often coordinates with other civic-minded trucks, such as Denver Public Library’s Bookmobiles (see that  schedule at denverlibrary.org/bookmobile) and the DMV’s to-go bus, where people can obtain IDs and renew their driver’s licenses.

“We want this to be a caravan,” Rodriguez said. “Whether it’s the Colorado Black Arts festival or a neighborhood street fair or the Stanley Marketplace, we can look like our own mini-festival and draw more people when we partner with other organizations.”