Food Truck Ordinace passes (Chicago: lease, purchasing, tax)

[LakeShoreSoxGo]

Some good quotes:

Aldermen voted 45-1 to approve the ordinance, with Ald. John Arena, 45th, the sole "no" vote.

Restaurant owners noted that they carry the tax burden and argued they deserve protection from businesses parked in front of their establishments that could potentially siphon off customers.

Arena thinks it goes too far in curbing the activities of the trucks in order to protect traditional restaurants. "The brick and mortar restaurant lobby got ahold of (the plan) and it was stuffed with protectionism and baked in the oven of paranoia," Arena said.

And Mayor Rahm Emanuel said the important thing is Chicago doesn't get left farther behind other cities in the push to allow food trucks. "We finally move forward as a city," he said after the vote. "Fifty other cities have figured out a way to go forward on food trucks and brick-and-mortar (restaurants). Now, Chicago is known as the Second City, I just wanted to make sure we weren't known as the fifty-second city."

City Council approves food truck ordinance - chicagotribune.com

[sfcambridge]

Yeah!! I am so happy.

Cheap, mobile tasty food. Probably a lot of it will be ethnic.... just great.

It's about time.

I hope people start posting when they find a tasty new truck.

[urbanlife78]

Awesome, this will change food in that city forever. Portland, Or has had an explosion of food carts all throughout the city where it has given a chance for young chefs to open up a cart that specializes in a dish or two and turn that into a successful business. I am so happy for Chicago passing this and I hope they see the same kind of success Portland has seen with this. And who can say no to great cheap food.

[Lorielicious]

I'm glad that we're slowly joining the rest of civilization in adopting street food, but there are a lot of ticky tacky rules that will for now are getting in the way of street food truly being ubiquitous as it is elsewhere. But it is a stepping stone, and despite my impatience, I've learned in my jillion years on Earth that progress is incremental. Hurrah for step one.

[chet everett]

I do not believe that these will be anything like Portland. The short term effect is likely to be whole lot of folks with crummy Subway franchises in the Loop doing a whole lot of purchasing of 200' measuring tapes, lots of calls for cops to chase away folks who are a little desperate to get some return on their expensive to lease food truck, a noticeable increase in disposable plates littering streets and more overpriced cup cakes than any town should be subjected too..

Long term you can't expect some rolling coach of doom to make a nicer beef sandwich than a purpose built restaurant that has been cranking 'em out for decade nor will anybody stand outside a truck for 50 minutes waiting for a deep dish pizza. When the weather gets awful expect folks to head back to places with HVAC...

I wanna run a mobile nano-brewery. Can I get a patent on that? The Hess Brewing Odyssey

[marothisu]

It's a good first step, but far from perfect. It'll be interesting to see what new trucks come out of this.

[LakeShoreSoxGo]

Originally Posted by chet everett

I do not believe that these will be anything like Portland. The short term effect is likely to be whole lot of folks with crummy Subway franchises in the Loop doing a whole lot of purchasing of 200' measuring tapes, lots of calls for cops to chase away folks who are a little desperate to get some return on their expensive to lease food truck, a noticeable increase in disposable plates littering streets and more overpriced cup cakes than any town should be subjected too..

Long term you can't expect some rolling coach of doom to make a nicer beef sandwich than a purpose built restaurant that has been cranking 'em out for decade nor will anybody stand outside a truck for 50 minutes waiting for a deep dish pizza. When the weather gets awful expect folks to head back to places with HVAC...

I wanna run a mobile nano-brewery. Can I get a patent on that? The Hess Brewing Odyssey

My, what an odd kill-joy response. Food trucks will bring zombies, zaaaaaaaaaaaah watch out. I mean SF, NYC, LA, all these cities are fending off the zombies that bring ecoli in their food trucks. We are doomed!

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by chet everett

I do not believe that these will be anything like Portland. The short term effect is likely to be whole lot of folks with crummy Subway franchises in the Loop doing a whole lot of purchasing of 200' measuring tapes, lots of calls for cops to chase away folks who are a little desperate to get some return on their expensive to lease food truck, a noticeable increase in disposable plates littering streets and more overpriced cup cakes than any town should be subjected too..

Long term you can't expect some rolling coach of doom to make a nicer beef sandwich than a purpose built restaurant that has been cranking 'em out for decade nor will anybody stand outside a truck for 50 minutes waiting for a deep dish pizza. When the weather gets awful expect folks to head back to places with HVAC...

I wanna run a mobile nano-brewery. Can I get a patent on that? The Hess Brewing Odyssey

Why would anyone want to have a deep dish pizza truck? Actually you can expect a pop up cart to produce a great beef sandwich if they have great ingredients and is a great chef. There are a lot of great chefs out there and I am sure Chicago is full of them.

[chet everett]

You know how wine that has been flown across the Atlantic gets "bottle shock" from moving at over 300MPH? Same with beef au jus. Anytime it moved faster than an 84 year old Italian grandmother can walk you risk destroying its delicate structure...

But seriously I think that too many people just have no clue how difficult it is to make living selling food. Search for the thread about Pasticceria Natalina. I mean I think it is possible that at one point in time that gal and her husband thought "how hard could it be to sell some nice cookies and make a buck or two". The early hours of baking and interminable hours of waiting for some pissy tightwad to wander in turned them in to the bitter folks that they became symbolic of food idealists hardened by the realities of the marketplace.

Chipotle is a bland homogenized excuse for real Mexican street food but the guys that run the company probably drive way nicer cars than anybody that owns a taqueria in Pilsen and I guarantee they take way more awesome vacations than anybody hawking khao man gai or bahn mi to oregonians...

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by chet everett

You know how wine that has been flown across the Atlantic gets "bottle shock" from moving at over 300MPH? Same with beef au jus. Anytime it moved faster than an 84 year old Italian grandmother can walk you risk destroying its delicate structure...

But seriously I think that too many people just have no clue how difficult it is to make living selling food. Search for the thread about Pasticceria Natalina. I mean I think it is possible that at one point in time that gal and her husband thought "how hard could it be to sell some nice cookies and make a buck or two". The early hours of baking and interminable hours of waiting for some pissy tightwad to wander in turned them in to the bitter folks that they became symbolic of food idealists hardened by the realities of the marketplace.

Chipotle is a bland homogenized excuse for real Mexican street food but the guys that run the company probably drive way nicer cars than anybody that owns a taqueria in Pilsen and I guarantee they take way more awesome vacations than anybody hawking khao man gai or bahn mi to oregonians...

Actually that is true, any of the successful carts in Portland work hard, very hard, and anyone who thinks it is easy work and a cash cow usually never survives. The best mexican cart in Portland, which might be some of the best mexican food in this country is open 6 days a week and is open from 9-7p, which doesn't include the amount of time they work to prepare all their fresh food.

But there have been a number of times that a small cart has been successful enough to start a real restaurant and has become quite a successful business. Case in point, a restaurant that is called No Fish, Go Fish started out as a food cart.

So yes, it can happen, it just takes a lot of hard work...which any restaurant will tell you the same thing.

As for expensive beef, no one is going to sell expensive beef at a food cart because you want to keep your overhead low and your menu limited. There is a cart in Portland called the Whole Bowl, all they make is a vegetarian bowl and have chips and drinks to offer, and they often have a line half way down the block and you can still get through that line in less than 15 minutes, which it has been successful enough for them to expand into more carts at different locations.