For decades, mobile food in New York meant food carts. Traditionally operated by immigrants, first Eastern European and Italian, then Greek and today generally Middle Eastern, the carts served basic fare: hot dogs, falafel, kebabs and knishes. Later, more ambitious proprietors added cheeseburgers or cheesesteaks, but the choices were hardly haute cuisine. Many credit failed Le Bernardin extern, Roy Choi, with taking food carts to the next level. In 2008, the Los Angeles chef debuted not a cart, but a truck, serving Korean style tacos.
Photo courtesy The New York Times
On a less flashy scale, chefs had already been innovating in New York for years, with Treats Truck and Hallo Berlin blazing the path. From Korean tacos and German street food, NY chefs took food truck possibilities in every logical, and some not so logical, directions. Within a few years, there were spots serving grass-fed beef burgers, cupcakes, Belgian frites and “Big Gay” ice cream. Even a truck serving “schnitzel and things” became a hit, making an appearance in a T-Mobile commercial. The New York food vendor awards, known affectionately as the Vendys, saw the variety of contenders skyrocket. With each day more trucks, exploring more food options, appeared around the city. Thanks to the lower overhead of running a truck as opposed to a restaurant, young New York chefs found trucks offered exciting opportunities and ways to innovate, without taking the massive risks that opening a restaurant entails. The relatively inexpensive, but by no means low quality food, was perfectly suited to recession-era America. These trucks also proved a gateway to more full service restaurants down the line, both by introducing foods such as Korean tacos to many menus, or by proprietors expanding their food truck model into a restaurant format once a customer base has been established.
Even popular food bible, Zagat Survey, adapted to the trend. “Over the past two years, an increasing number of diners say they frequent food trucks and follow them on Twitter and Facebook”, said Tim Zagat, co-founder of the eponymous books. “The overall popularity of food trucks has not only led to their inclusion in our guides, but also to our first food truck survey, which will be released later this year.”
A strength that sets the trucks apart from their smaller sibling, the cart, is that, well they are trucks. The extra space means chefs have many of the same tools as those operating in a kitchen. The largest food cart might boast two workers, but a truck can have a full kitchen staff. Unfortunately, this size differential has also proven a weakness. Food carts station themselves on sidewalks and have permits. A truck needs to park in the street. For years this hadn’t proven a problem. But on May 24, that all changed. It was then that New York State Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey D. Wright ruled that food trucks were violating a 1950s era city transportation department regulation stating that no “vendor, hawker or huckster shall park a vehicle at a metered parking space” to offer “merchandise for sale from the vehicle.” It was a Black Tuesday for the food truck world.
By June, police were shooing some of the city’s most popular vendors from their longtime spots. To date, officers have only been issuing warnings, but that hasn’t changed the fact that without a place to park, it’s impossible to operate a food truck. According to The New York Times, many vendors believe the new ruling and the ensuing crackdowns are a result of complaints by “brick-and-mortar businesses.”
Some trucks have found an alternative in “food-truck lots”, such as the one in Midland Beach, Staten Island. But having all the vendors in the same parking lot is more akin to the famed Brooklyn Flea; it’s not truly street food. It may work in a city like Los Angeles, where everyone has a car and walking is nearly a crime, but New York is a city of pedestrians. Food trucks are places where folks from all socioeconomic levels mingle, waiting in the same long line for the same delicious food. As David Weber, president of the New York City Food Truck Association and Rickshaw Dumpling truck owner, recently told the Times, “Food trucks activate public space.” As trucks become over regulated, or in some cases, driven out of business by bureaucracy, not only will this new, creative side to New York’s food culture fade, but so will these public spheres. Perhaps it is not hopeless though. Zagat believes, “As in the case of New York’s famous street vendors, I believe that the food trucks will achieve a Modus Vivendi with the NYPD.”
Comments
Wow - I had no idea. Thanks. Are there any other possibilities for food truck vendors? Or is the party basically over? I for one would be sad to see them choked off. Are there permits for operating legally in certain places?
Great article.
Aug 01, 2011 at 2:35 PM
A really interesting piece. Who is this writer? Have we seen anything by him before?
Aug 01, 2011 at 3:16 PM
Great article. Makes me want to run right out and get dinner at a great food truck before they move them all away.
Shelley
Aug 01, 2011 at 4:00 PM
eling
Always wondered about what was behind the evolution of food trucks in NYC...
Aug 01, 2011 at 8:15 PM
Great article, if anybody is interested in a New Zealand Food Truck, check out this guy at:
http://www.tvnz.co.nz/the-food-truc... - healthy fast food, hard to believe but true!
Aug 02, 2011 at 2:09 AM
Friction with the NYPD has always been an issue in NYC. As the Vice President of Mobile Food Equipment here at 800BUYCART (a division of Worksman Cycles) I've seen an on again off again relationship that goes back through several Mayors; as far back as Mayor Laguardia.
This will never change, as street food although intrinsic to NYC character; has always been disliked by brick and mortar businesses.
Though this has always posed challenges to our manufacturing, it has never really impeded our business through nearly 60 years.
Aug 02, 2011 at 9:01 AM
As en ex-New Yorker who was always eating on the go, food trucks would have been my savior. I know the food truck craze is popping up everywhere and gaining respect as a new trend as well as providing excellent food. Thank you for bringing to light an issue I was completely unaware of. It would be horrible if NYC as well as any other city ruled that the food trucks were not allowed to park on the street.
Hope you continue covering this topic. I want to know if the people will win on this one!!
Aug 02, 2011 at 11:24 AM
Mansback
So happy you explained the evolution of food trucks. Very interesting to see where it all started. I always indulge in my favorite food trucks at the Brooklyn Flea.
Aug 02, 2011 at 11:25 AM
530482
I live in LA and food trucks are abundant here. I bought into the hype and was on a quest to try a lot of them- just to see if they deserved the credit and the publicity they got from the public, Twitter, Facebook and Yelp. Sorry to report, NONE of them were worth the attention, effort, chase (food truck chasing), glory or taste (the most important) that was reported. Perhaps I expected more but at the end of the day, this food comes from a truck with no health code rating. There were several incidences where I got sick - the Vietnamese Sandwich Truck, Indian Curry/Samosa truck and Korean Taco truck. It was food poisoning hell. Also in LA, these food trucks create even more of a traffic nightmare. Perhaps there is another business on the rise - a food mobile truck park where they can all congregate and serve crappy food. Never again.
Aug 02, 2011 at 11:32 AM
This is a really interesting, well written account of another aspect of daily life in the city. I wish I could sample all the food truck fare!
Aug 02, 2011 at 9:30 PM
Just come to Wilshire Blvd in LA near the LA County Museum of Art for lunch if you want to see where it all started and dine on food truck glory. Sorry NY, but the food truck craze started in LA!
Aug 03, 2011 at 12:23 AM
do
Very interesting. I hope the NYC vendors and the city can come up with a plan, its been so exciting to see all the new and different kinds of ideas coming from food trucks the last few years.
Aug 03, 2011 at 12:52 PM
Snoother - Korean Taco??? That should have been your first clue not to eat there.
Aug 03, 2011 at 1:32 PM
great article.
Aug 07, 2011 at 2:55 PM
the sun
It makes me want to go out and open up a food truck --how about a health food one? or one that folks with food stamps can access?
Aug 12, 2011 at 11:42 AM
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