MISQUAH — The measure of commerce at the public landing is the line at the Martinez truck, and the measure of the line is how far it reaches toward the boat trailers. On Thursday evening, with the air newly clear and the ordinary sunset drawing its crowd, the line reached the trailers by six and passed them by seven, which Mateo Martinez confirmed is the best mark since he and Sofia parked the truck there this spring. “Smoke week, people order and go,” he said. “This week, they order and stay. Staying is the business.”

The truck — which has no name on it and needs none, being “the truck” to the entire Chain — runs Thursday through Sunday, and had a quiet stretch of it during the advisory, when standing outdoors on purpose was briefly a discouraged activity. The Martinezes used the slow days to prep for the fair-adjacent rush they were promised was coming and did not entirely believe in. They believe in it now. Sunday they sold out of everything but restraint by seven-thirty.

The al pastor took the week’s informal honors, endorsed on the letters page of this very edition by a correspondent’s wife, and the chips remained what Sofia Martinez has always said they are: for everyone. The salsa recipe remained what it has always been as well. Asked for it — by this newspaper, on behalf of the Recipe Box, for the third time this summer — Sofia declined with the warmth of long practice. “The recipe is family,” she said. “The chips are for everyone. This is the whole arrangement, and it works.”

It does. The Recipe Box’s standing request stands, renewed herewith, expecting nothing. The truck will be at the landing through the fall “as long as the line keeps finding us,” Mateo said, and on present evidence the line has the address. The Holts, opening a taproom eleven days from now with food “by arrangement with a neighbor,” were asked if the neighbor has a truck. They smiled the smile the whole town is learning to interpret, and the canvas, as usual, said nothing.