Makers & Tasters is a small but now permanent incarnation of Eat the Street, the monthly food-truck festival that used to take place off South Street and now moves around the island, including this Ala Moana Boulevard site. (This month’s Eat the Street, “Luau,” takes place today.) Makers & Tasters is now a daily venue to find new ideas in casual food.

About a half-dozen or so food trucks and counters congregate at the site Wednesday to Saturday evenings, with happy hour running from 5 to 7 p.m. As one might expect, it’s casual dining to the max, and while there are a few bugs to the setup — literally — overall it provides a pleasant, patio-dining experience for open-minded food fanatics who’d like to enjoy a snack or a small meal in the open air.

The experience

Makers & Tasters is next to Kewalo Harbor, at the site previously occupied by the Fisherman’s Wharf Restaurant. Save for the sign, the Fisherman’s Wharf Restaurant is gone now. It’s been replaced by a large cement slab and a wooden deck, which serves as a beer-and-cocktails garden.

Some small, round tables sit atop the cement, while picnic tables are on the deck. Large umbrellas provide shade.

The experience can vary, depending on the time of day. When pau hana opens at 5 p.m., traffic from the intersection of Ala Moana Boulevard and Ward Avenue nearby makes the site fairly noisy. But even then it’s never so noisy that you can’t have a conversation, unlike many indoor bars.

By 6:30 or so the noise lessens. With dusk this time of year setting in at the same time, I found the ambience pleasant and cool, especially with the boat harbor nearby.

On Fridays one can look toward Waikiki to see the fireworks display from the Hilton Hawaiian Village, another plus. Just the open-air atmosphere adds a level of casual comfort.

One thing about outdoor dining, though: You never know when you might get buzzed by flies. When we first sat down at 5 p.m., they were a significant annoyance. As it got cooler and darker, they disappeared. Manager Derrick Stevens said there doesn’t seem to be any pattern to their behavior — sometimes they’re there, sometimes not. If you go at dusk, there shouldn’t be a problem.

The drinks

Adjoining the wooden deck is the bar, which is simply a trailer where the bartender can mix drinks, which are then passed to you outside. There’s a nice variety of drinks. Stevens is an experienced mixologist, having tended bar at The Modern Honolulu and run his own mobile bartending service.

I had two of his specialty drinks: the Stormy Seas, a concoction of gin, muddled blackberry and lime, topped off with ginger beer ($6 during happy hour, regularly $8). This was a pleasant, light drink that allowed the blackberry flavor to shine.

Stevens also prepared a Mariner, another light drink consisting of tequila, lime, grapefruit with a bit of li hing mui (also $6 during happy hour). The grapefruit and li hing blended together perfectly in that sweet-and-sour way. I’m limited in the amount of grapefruit I can have, but otherwise I’d be happy to have this drink on a regular basis.

Bud Light and Rolling Rock are $4 at all times, and during happy hour most other beers, wine and well drinks are $5. Stevens said he’ll soon be bringing in San Miguel beer on tap, a beer from the Philippines that is particularly smooth.

The food

Since it’s a food-truck place, you won’t know what you’ll get at Makers & Tasters unless you check its website, makersandtasters.com. The first evening I went, the place had Shaka Shrimp, La Roux, Flyin’ Ahi, Sea and Soul, Petit Suisse Crepes, Nalo Made Lemonade, Tea on Fleek and Wieners Gone Wild. Many of those were gone the next night, off on catering gigs around town.

What makes Makers & Tasters nice for pau hana are the variety and price. I tried a couple of items from Sean Priester’s Sea and Soul: a Maine-style lobster roll and the garlic langostino BLT. Lobster, of course, is a luxury, especially here in Hawaii, so it was nice to get a taste of it at $15. More pleasing, though, was the langostino BLT, with the bacon adding just the right amount of saltiness to the dish. Gremolata dressing topped off both of them nicely.

Another night I had La Roux’s Shrimp and Crawfish Etouffee. It’d been a long time since I’d eaten crawdads. I was pleased when chef Sheri Collins told me they were flown in direct from New Orleans and that she’d learn to cook them from her husband’s Creole family. With a rich but not-too-spicy tomato cream sauce, the slightly chewy texture of the crawdads went down especially nicely.

The verdict

It’s a bit odd that Ward Villages, across Ala Moana Boulevard, has a number of eateries, none of which offers a view of the water. So if you’ve been shopping over there and want to take in a light dinner and drink while enjoying the harbor view, Makers & Tasters is the place.

You won’t know what to expect at Makers & Tasters if you just drop in. If you’re the adventurous type, that’s a good thing, but once you find something you like, it might be best to check the Web first. The outdoor ambience, once you get accustomed to it, is pleasant in the cool evening air and the night sky, especially when lit by a full moon.