CRAIG LaBAN / Staff
Hawaiian-style tacos – Kalua pork, pork belly, and chicken katsu – from the Poi Dog Philly cart.

This is an excerpt from Craig LaBan’s online chat of May 8, 2013:

Craig LaBan: Welcome to the Food Truck edition of our chat! I have two of my favorite food truck owners cohosting: Kiki Aranita from Poi Dog Philly, a Temple-based cart serving Hawaiian snack foods, and Alan Krawitz of Say Cheese Philadelphia, one of the “pioneers” of this generation of food trucks, whose Drexel-based truck specializes in variations on grilled cheese and house-cured meats. What sparked your interest in running a food cart or truck?

A.K.: Starting Say Cheese was initially a joke. We thought it would be hilarious to open a food truck selling only grilled cheese. The more we delved into the nuts and bolts of the business, we realized there was really something there. Since then, we’ve been flexing our creative muscles. 

K.A.: Hawaiian food is underrepresented on the East Coast and I’m on a personal mission to share how wonderful it is.

Reader: Any word on the Garage bar project on E. Passyunk that was to host multiple food trucks at a time in its space?

C.L.: And what else do you think is missing, in terms of infrastructure or city backing, to help the scene flourish more?

A.K.: This city’s trucks lack the ability to access its most densely populated areas. We need to have rotating lots in center city where we’d be able to service more people at lunch time. Also, access to late-night service would benefit all of our businesses.

C.L.: What has surprised you most in this business?

K.A.: What’s surprised me most is people’s response to us and the attention we’ve been getting. People with connections to Hawaii keep emerging as if from the woodwork, excited about eating the things they miss.

C.L.: I think a lot of people have a romanticized vision of what it must be like to run a food cart. What are the biggest misperceptions? How long do you guys work behind the scene, btw, before you ever get out on the road?

A.K.: Say Cheese grinds on Sundays for about 8-10 hours to put out enough product for a five-day workweek. The total hours of work per week approach 80. If an event or catering has to be executed, the prep hours can grow exponentially based on the amount of food we need to put out.

K.A.: We spend most of our time working behind the scene – probably 70 percent. Prepping, cleaning, worrying about repairs, doing paperwork. A customer asked me what my day job was – since I only spend a few hours serving lunch. This is my day and my night job.

C.L.: What are the bureaucratic obstacles in Philadelphia standing in the way of a bigger food truck revolution?

K.A.: The city makes things extremely confusing. Even if L&I makes the process to getting a business license simple, they are so backed up with mail that you can’t mail an application in without waiting 4 months. But you can go to the municipal services building and get it within a day with paperwork.

A.K.: The bureaucratic obstacles we face on a daily basis are varied. Sometimes we face issues from the PPA. Sometimes we face issues with L&I. Other days it’s the Health Dept. As truckers we are inspected sometimes 30 times per year depending on the number of large events we do. Most restaurants are inspected no more than twice per year, if that.

http://www.philly.com/philly/food/20130509_Operators_talk.html

Trevor Holness operates Stir It Up, a Rasta-themed mobile coffee cart endorsed by music legend Bob Marley’s family, and the city’s first to operate under cycle power.
Photograph by: wayne leidenfrost , Vancouver Sun

Trevor Holness is among the thousands of Vancouver residents who cycle to work each day.

He carries his office with him. All 500-plus pounds of it.

Holness operates Stir It Up, a Rasta-themed mobile coffee cart endorsed by music legend Bob Marley’s family, and the city’s first to operate under cycle power.

The eco-friendly business, which offers “old-school” customized specialty coffee and gluten-free snacks, is one of 15 new street food vendors selected to join Vancouver’s growing collection of food trucks this summer.

The new vendors will offer everything from Filipino fusion and kosher Israeli to urban Fijian, Salvadoran and good old mac and cheese.

“It’s a far cry from where we were just a few years ago,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson of the diverse international flavours on offer on Vancouver’s streets since the program launched in 2010.

The city’s 114 trucks are “really representing the incredible multicultural interests of our city,” Robertson said.

This year marks the first time the stationary food trucks will be found outside the immediate downtown area. New locations include the Olympic Village SkyTrain station, Abbott Street near Roger’s Arena, Victoria Square and Beach Avenue.

Five of the new vendors will be located together along Hamilton Street outside the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in a new food truck pod.

Vancouver’s street food vendors were recently ranked third best in North America by Travel and Escape Digital Magazine behind Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas.

Click here to view more photos

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Vancouver+street+food+vendors+stirring/8330101/story.html#ixzz2SHtXh9OM

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Vancouver+food+vendors+stirring/8330101/story.html

The Brixton People’s Kitchen team has been busy designing and building a kitchen. On a bike. Just because. And we are planning to take it to different places over the Summer. But before we do that, we would like to celebrate (again!) in our usual venue, Myatt’s Fields Park.

So come and join us for yet another feast cooked from surplus food, and check out our newly built bike! We will also have some live music, and a little crafts workshop if you are coming with children.

Please, let us know in advance if you want to volunteer as a cook, or help with the food collection. Contact Camilla: 07884418319 volunteerwithbrixtonpk@gmail.com

11-12pm FOOD COLLECTION & DROP-OFF
We are calling for surplus food from local houses, gardens, parks and businesses. Any fruits, vegetables, dried and canned foods that you don’t quite know what to do with, bring them down!

12-3pm COOK! If you can chop, pick, stir, peel, wash, grate, serve, or smile, you’re in! Please let us know in advance if you would like to volunteer, as cooking places are limited.

3-6pm EAT! Join the communal table and make new friends. Food will be served up on a donations basis. Put what you can or will into the pot, or feel free to eat for free! We will serve until the food runs out, so we recommend you arrive early to avoid any disappointment.

Please bring food containers, in case there are an leftovers!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

http://brixtonpk.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/unveiling-the-mobile-kitchen/

Nana’s Frozen Custard made its debut Friday at Center Park. (Photo: Staff)

For the first time this season, food trucks gathered at Market Street’s Center Park on Friday with two new additions to the street food scene. And there may be two more food trucks in coming months.

Owner Duane Olscvary of Nana’s Famous Frozen Custard, 6707 Hixson Pike, built a truck to take his product to the streets.

The other new addition is King of Pops, which is a cart with handcrafted popsicles made with fresh fruit.

The street food scene in Chattanooga now includes Famous Nater’s, Southern Burger Company, Local Slice, Nana’s, A Taste of Argentina, The Missing Link cart, King of Pops, The Muenster Truck—which should hit streets this summer—and Rock N’ Tacos, which Nooga.com hasn’t written about before, but it’s been open for about a year.

Rock N’ Tacos couldn’t make it to Center Park today because of mechanical trouble, Jim Williamson, vice president of planning and development for River City Company, said.

And this summer, a waffle truck and a burrito truck may join the scene—Mountain Waffle Wagon and California Smothered Burrito, respectively.

Williamson said he doesn’t want to say the trucks will definitely be here, but plans are in the works.

Nana’s Famous Frozen Custard
The Hixson location is a “retro drive-in kind of place,” Olscvary—who built the truck to take his product to the streets—said.

“You can’t buy a book on how to build a food truck—you just sort of look at other food trucks,” he said.

He bought parts from vendors and put the truck together over months. His truck didn’t need a lot of cooking equipment, so he got a big freezer, generators and cabinet and started putting together the metal plates and doing the electrical work.

He passed the fire and health inspections and hit the street Friday.

Local company Printree did the truck’s wrap, which has a picture of his grandchildren on it.

He will be at the market on Sundays and at Home Depot tomorrow.

“The word is getting out,” he said. “We’re doing weddings. We cater. We want to keep the truck on the road if we can. We are learning where to go. We’re excited about this and waiting to see how well it works.”

King of Pops uses fresh, local ingredients to create its product. (Photo: Staff)

King of Pops
Hudson Magee has brought King of Pops from Atlanta to Chattanooga.

“It’s not a franchise—we work together to bring it to different places, and we’re a local company wherever we go,” he said. “We start different kitchens in different cities and buy local produce.”

So far, Magee is making them in Atlanta and bringing them to Chattanooga, but he is looking at potentially opening a kitchen here and possibly a storefront one day, he said.

But the King of Pops cart is key to the business, Magee said.

“A lot of our character comes from the push cart and the street sales, and that’s kind of our trademark. It’s a fun way to run the business,” he said.

There are other cart-type street vendors that show up around town, too, such as Monkey Town Donut Company; The Chattanooga Cookie Company; and Pure Sodaworks, which now has a storefront and bottling location on the North Shore.

None of those businesses came out Friday, though.

Williamson said he was pleased with the turnout for the first day at Center Park, which coincided with the season’s first Fresh on Fridays, which is in Miller Plaza.

“There was a huge crowd down there today,” he said.

http://www.nooga.com/161009/new-food-trucks-debut-at-center-park-more-possible-this-summer/

Casey Dyson and her cookie scooter (photo courtesy Casey Dyson / April 9, 2013)

No doubt you’ve heard of food trucks, but Casey Dyson is taking the traveling food trend to another level with CookieRide — a self-described “mobile cookie jar.”

“I knew I wanted to do something with food,” she says. “I liked the idea of cupcake trucks and the hominess of products such as cupcakes and cookies, but I felt like there were a lot of cupcake trucks out there.”

So Dyson, a former baker at Touché Touchet Bakery in Columbia, decided to focus on cookies and opted for a scooter because it’s more eco-friendly than a truck.

“It has a much better carbon footprint, and it’s still really convenient,” Dyson, 48, says of her trademark red scooter from The Genuine Scooter Co. “It’s something that’s really fun and attracts customers — kids and adults.”

No doubt you’ve heard of food trucks, but Casey Dyson is taking the traveling food trend to another level with CookieRide — a self-described “mobile cookie jar.”

“I knew I wanted to do something with food,” she says. “I liked the idea of cupcake trucks and the hominess of products such as cupcakes and cookies, but I felt like there were a lot of cupcake trucks out there.”

So Dyson, a former baker at Touché Touchet Bakery in Columbia, decided to focus on cookies and opted for a scooter because it’s more eco-friendly than a truck.

“It has a much better carbon footprint, and it’s still really convenient,” Dyson, 48, says of her trademark red scooter from The Genuine Scooter Co. “It’s something that’s really fun and attracts customers — kids and adults.”

For $2, you can enjoy a 2-ounce homemade cookie in a variety of flavors, including standards like chocolate chip and peanut butter, as well as seasonal flavors. Protein-rich Power Bites are $2 and contain nuts, dried fruit and agave nectar. Gluten-free and peanut-free cookies also are available.

In order to sell her cookies, Dyson acquired state and local licenses and permits, as well as the food safety ServSafe certification.

CookieRide frequents Columbia-area pools, parks and office building parking lots. To find out where Dyson will be next, be sure to check out her Twitter and Facebook pages, where she posts her daily schedule.

She expects to restart curbside sales on her scooter in late April or early May and continue until early November. Dyson offers delivery and party services to homes and offices year-round as well. The standard party package is two hours and includes a cookie cake, activities and games for $15 per child.

“I love Columbia, and I consider this a little bit of service to Columbians, whether they’re at the pool or the lakefront or coming to the farmers market,” says Dyson, who lives in Kings Contrivance. “I’m a local person supplying good homemade food. You can pronounce every ingredient. I enjoy the neighborhood dynamic and giving back to the community.”

CookieRide, 443-562-7127, cookieride.com

http://www.baltimoresun.com/explore/howard/events-entertainment/dining/bs-exho-columbia-cookieride-scooter20130409,0,932597.story

Photo by Jonathan Olivares

Street vendors sell everything from fruta tochicharrones, tacos and quesadillas on the streets of Boyle Heights—with or without proper city permits.

But vending without these requirements come at a cost. Street vendors run the risk of being fined, having their equipment and goods confiscated, and facing jail time.

In order to prevent this from happening, the East Los Angeles Community Corporation has been working to develop a permit system that will help street vendors legally sell their goods on the streets of Los Angeles.

The organization has interviewed street vendors and residents, hosted community events and fundraisers, and set up town hall meetings to discuss the challenges many street vendors face and how a better system can benefit them, according to Janet Favela, community organizer with ELACC.

They have also met with restaurant owners, business owners and Los Angeles City Council members to present their findings, plus an initial proposal that would involve changing the municipal code so that vendors could sell legally on the sidewalk.

According to ELACC, Los Angeles is one of the 10 largest cities in the U.S. without a form of legalized street vending. ELACC partnered with community organizations as part of the Street Food Work Group of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council to develop an ordinance to regulate how vendors can sell food on sidewalks.

Another part of the policy would include giving vendors incentives to sell healthier foods. Favela said that ELACC is “working through defining healthy food that would be covered as well as [the] levels of incentives.” These incentives could include vendors having locations close to rail, buses or parks or possibly a discount in fees. However, she added that “none of this is final.”

ELACC will host ‘Policy con pan dulce,’ a panel discussion from 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. today at the Boyle Heights Technology Youth Center (1600 E. 4th Street, L.A., Ca 90033) to discuss the achievements and goals behind their campaign.

http://www.boyleheightsbeat.com/effort-to-legalize-street-food-vending-in-los-angeles-continues-2170

LEXINGTON, KY (WKYT) — Food truck supporters and detractors alike met today for a contentious meeting to discuss the future of the mobile meal trucks in Lexington’s public places.

At the moment, food trucks — self-contained small restaurants that often park outside bars and businesses to serve portable meals to diners on the go — are allowed to operate on private property.

Last year, a work group in favor of food trucks proposed that the trucks be allowed to operate on public property. Many downtown restaurants voiced concern about the idea, citing fears that allowing trucks to set up nearby would hurt their businesses — a dire prospect, since they claim that Lexington is already over-saturated with restaurants.

Last year, the city shot down the idea altogether, but since then, Vice Mayor Linda Gorton formed a task force to take a closer look at the issue.

Today, that task force met to review a “drafted ordinance” that proposes initial rules and regulations for the operation of food trucks. Many were on hand, including health department officials, food truck owners and employees, city leaders, law enforcement officials, and someone representing the area’s restaurants.

Food truck advocates seemed cheered by the council’s willingness to at least hear the issue. One food truck owner was optimistic. “The council has made great progress from where we were a year ago to where we are now,” said Jason Cullen. “It’s leaps and bounds.”

The representative of some of the downtown restaurants was not quite as enthusiastic about the prospect. “Restaurants want to participate in the food truck industry; they want to grow with it,” said Gene Williams. “The way we do this and the way we integrate a new aspect of our industry, we have to be careful… We don’t want to jeopardize our existing efforts in creating an independent, interesting downtown for restaurants.”

Officials said the next meeting will be held on February 14th.

http://www.wkyt.com/news/headlines/City-council-holds-meeting-to-determine-future-of-food-trucks-190234181.html?ref=181

There is a misconception that Filipino food is allabout fried and greasy meat, and overly sweet snacks. Not exactly true. City diet is often fried and greasy or overly sweet but the humble folk have more fresh fruit and vegetables in their diet.

This is the tropics, we have no winter, we get fresh vegetables and fruits all year, and we never found the need to develop canning skills.

And the fresh fruits find their way in street food. This ambulant vendor sells sliced fresh fruits which he sprinkles with a little salt to really bring out the fruits’ natural sweetness.

http://streeteats.casaveneracion.com/fresh-fruit-slices-oh-yes-we-have-healthy-street-foods-too/

Business: Six Strawberries
Owners: Vanessa Resler and Will Lemke
Industry:Foods

Vanessa Resler and Will Lemke couldn’t have asked for a better summer to kick off their ice pop business.  As the dry, sunny days lingered into October, Resler and Lemke pedaled their mobile popsicle carts from neighborhood to neighborhood, getting their product into the hands of hundreds of Seattleites.

Resler and Lemke business, Six Strawberries, is Seattle’s first artisan ice pops company. They specialize in dairy-free ice pops with a focus on local ingredients and innovative rotating flavors such as PB&J, Asian Pear, Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, Thai Iced Tea, and many more.

But what makes Six Strawberries truly unique is that they are Seattle’s first licensed bicycle-powered mobile food cart.

“We’re a young business with a new product and a new business model of being a mobile food truck sans truck,” Lemke said. “There really aren’t a lot of bike businesses, and it’s been really fun to get out there.”

Six Strawberries was dreamt up one day during a video conference between Resler, Lemke and her cousin Alex, who was sick in a hospital bed.

Popsicles being Resler’s  favorite food, the trio brainstormed delicious ice pop flavors: super sour apple, cake on a popsicle, a pop that tasted like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

They decided that as soon as Alex was out of the hospital, they would start a business selling these uniquely-flavored ice pops. One week later however, Alex passed away at only 27 years old. As a tribute to Alex, Lemke and Resler decided to start the project that the three of them had dreamt up.

Six Strawberries grew from a brainstorming session to a grief-processing project to, ultimately, a young business.

“He really is the third founder of our business,” Resler said.  “Many of our flavors were Alex’ creations.”

It took six months of experiments in a home kitchen, coming up with unique flavors, learning the chemistry behind varying freezing temperatures, improving the workflow, and tastings before the product was marketable.

“There was a lot of trial and error,” Lemke said. “There are no books on how to start a popsicle business.”

Thanks to catering connections, Lemke and Resler are allowed to use a commercial kitchen in the off-hours, which makes for a lot of productions shifts at odd, late-night hours.

And while the pops are in the freezer, Resler, a recovering CPA turned karaoke host, and Lemke, a filmmaker, return to their real jobs.

“This was only our first season so our first step was to get our product into the hands of people,” Lemke said.  And the bicycle cart was the perfect means to do it.

The nice thing of having a bicycle is that it’s mobile, low-maintenance, and low-cost, Lemke said, adding that they were able to start the business without investors or going into debt.

A first of its kind, Six Strawberries had to apply for a mobile vendor permit, which allows them to move from street to street and sell, but it comes with a lot of exceptions. For example, they can’t sell their product in downtown Seattle, the U-District or Stadium district, nor are they allowed within a 50-feet-radius of a park.

“It’s a new thing for the city to deal with us bike vendors. And we’d be happy to help new bike businesses through the vendor application process,” Lemke said. “I think the zones will loosen up if there were a bunch of us. Portland is known for their food carts, we can be known for our food bicycles.”

To get their products in the hands of Seattleites, Lemke and Resler started selling at farmers markets and used social media such as Glimpse, Twitter, and Facebook to announce their whereabouts.

“We also received really good worth of mouth,” said Lemke.

While the street sales wind down in the winter, Lemke and Resler are gearing up for a busy event season, and have started experimenting with holiday-inspired ice pops for special orders, parties and corporate events.

In the future, Resler hopes to make Six Strawberries her fulltime gig and see their company grow to a fleet of bicycles and maybe even a storefront.

“As a tribute to Alex, I want to have a charitable element to our business and work with organizations that help kids with illnesses,” she said. “Also, I never want to go on a job interview again.”

http://blog.cascade.org/2012/10/six-strawberries/