A Bakersfield food truck owner with a million-view moment and a mission bigger than the menu
Published: Feb. 20, 2026
Gilbert Juarez was born in Torrance, California but moved to Bakersfield when he was two years old. His earliest memories start around five: a one-bedroom apartment on Brundage Lane near Chester Avenue, wedged against a canal that sent roaches streaming through the walls. His mother had fallen in love with a man who would become Juarez’s stepfather, someone he described as going in and out of prison on multi-year stretches. When he was home, the household ran on his rules, which Juarez describes very much like a prison. “He mentally prepared me and my brother for jail and prison,” Juarez says.
The family survived on government assistance, cycling through apartments on Eye Street, 2nd Street, and near West High. According to Juarez, he weighed barely 65 pounds through most of elementary school, a rail-thin kid who masked the turmoil behind a dimpled grin.
“I was always smiling,” he says. “I was hiding behind my smile all the things that were bothering us. And we couldn’t really express that to anyone because you can’t talk about it. It was normal. It’s hard to communicate something that you know so well and that’s part of you. I didn’t know wrong from right because we weren’t educated to know that we’re able to live differently. It was just really chaotic and very dysfunctional.”
There was one bright interruption. Every time Juarez’s stepfather went to prison, his mother took the kids to a small church called Believers in Jesus led by Victor and Susan Perez. It was Juarez’s first glimpse of a world beyond the canal. “It was the best time of our lives going to church because we got to fellowship and step out of our boundaries. People were in suits and we were just like, wow. This is so foreign,” Juarez says.
A Mentor, A Box Truck, And A New World
Juarez eventually found his way to Los Angeles, graduating from a Lakewood high school while living with his grandmother Dolores. He had deliberately cut himself off from a family tree tangled in turmoil. His break came through the owner of South Coast Sanitary Supply, who hired 17-year-old Juarez to drive a delivery truck.
One day, spotting a competitor delivering to a Head Start preschool in Artesia, Juarez walked in behind the man, introduced himself, and talked his way into a meeting with the program director. Two weeks later he delivered a presentation and walked out with an order for three locations. Within a month, the client gave South Coast all 35 of their Head Start centers.
“He said, ‘You’re no longer on the truck. You’re our honorary salesman,'” Juarez remembers when reflecting on that transition from working the delivery truck to becoming a salesman.
The sanitary supply owner took Juarez on his first airplane ride—a deep-sea fishing trip to La Paz, Mexico. No one in Juarez’s family had ever been on a plane, and to this day, he’s still the only one. “I couldn’t believe there were other worlds and other places that we could be, besides Brundage and Eye Street,” Juarez says.
From A Bumpy Start To Going Viral
A car accident rerouted Juarez back to Bakersfield, but if you know him, you know he doesn’t sit still for long. He took the hustle he once poured into driving a truck for South Coast Sanitary Supply and flipped the script—this time into a food truck. What started as a simple ice cream concept quickly leveled up. Soon Mister Dimples wasn’t just hand-scooping cones, it was slinging burgers, quesadillas, asada fries, Korean corn dogs, and the now-iconic Dimple Donut Burger.
Then, just two weeks into setting up downtown, disaster hit. The engine blew.
But Juarez doesn’t quit. One of his biggest supporters—the same fan who nominated him for Kern Magazine’s February Spotlight—rallied behind him. And his mom stepped in to help fund a new engine and gave him the push that changed everything.
“My mom is a very, very beautiful woman,” Juarez says. She told him: “You’re always happy, outgoing. Everyone loves you. You gotta get on that truck.” She also told him to try TikTok. “I don’t watch TV anymore, son. I look at my phone and I’m watching real live people.”
In the beginning of January 2025, Juarez started live-streaming from the truck. For three weeks, his audience was his mom and two sisters. Then on January 22, nine viewers appeared. Juarez leaned in—dancing, narrating, lifting a steaming bun right up to the lens. TikTok’s algorithm caught the movement. Within five minutes, 450 people. Within ten, 500. Within 25 minutes, a quarter of a million. By the end, the stream had crossed one million viewers and accumulated millions of likes.
“I felt scared, happy, confused—all at once,” Juarez says. “All of my emotions were going through my head.”
What followed stunned him. People from all over messaged to say they had been on the edge—ready to take their own lives—before stumbling onto his stream. Old friends from the neighborhoods he’d left behind reached out. “Bro, we’re watching you. We’re living through you. Keep going,” Juarez recalls of messages from childhood friends. Eventually, all that energy led him to a sit-down interview with Jennifer Hudson on The Jennifer Hudson Show, where she tested out his food surprised him with a $1,000 tip. During the interview, Juarez even got to show his dance moves.
Giving Back To Kern
Mister Dimples is now a fixture at Bakersfield high schools, and Juarez was recently recognized by the Kern County Board of Supervisors with an Acknowledgment Award for his service to the community. He has also been nominated as a Visionary of the Year for Blood Cancer United, leading a 10-week campaign to raise $50,000 in honor of his grandmother Irene “Big Mama” Gonzales, who passed away from cancer, and families currently fighting—including three-year-old Rosemary, who is battling leukemia.
“I’m committed to using my voice, my platform, and my heart to create hope and make a difference for families facing blood cancer,” Juarez says.
This February, Juarez is one of two Kern County Spotlight honorees—both nominated by the communities they serve. He and fellow honoree Rick Shaw of Skye’s The Limit Institute of Wellness have also found their way to each other, with Mister Dimples giving back to the community at some of Shaw’s Family Anthem events. You can read Rick Shaw’s full story in this month’s companion spotlight.
Ask Juarez what he loves about Kern County and his voice softens. “Knowing that I’ve grown up here and come from nothing, I know a lot of people don’t have much, and I love to see their smiles. I love to see people working together and coming together. That’s what really gets me—because I didn’t know people came together like this.”
Out of Town Vibes: Topanga Canyon. Specifically Joey’s in Woodland Hills. “It’s the best,” he says, “great food, great energy, great reminder that there’s more out there.”
Local Eats: Flames & Skewers for Mediterranean. And yes—he’ll absolutely eat at Mister Dimples.
Follow Mister Dimples on Instagram.
Visit Blood Cancer United.
Stay tuned for Kern Magazine’s story on our other February spotlight honoree, Rick Shaw and the Skye’s The Limits Institute of Wellness. If you want to nominate someone in your Kern community for next month’s spotlight, contact Kern Magazine’s publisher here.
Want to hear more from Mister Dimples? Check out the video below:
