Scene from Reno’s first ever Food Truck Friday, downtown at CitiCenter.
Photo © Stan White

Food Truck Fridays is Reno’s original gathering of mobile eateries. The event is back for the 2013 season with an amazing mix of meals and treats on wheels. Food Truck Fridays happens in downtown Reno at the CitiCenter Plaza (site of the old CitiCenter bus terminal), 40 E. 4th Street (corner of E. 4th and N. Center Street), across from the National Bowling Stadium.

For 2013, Food Truck Fridays began on April 5 and will repeat every first and third Friday through October. The trucks will be gathered and serving up their specialties from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Over the season, participating trucks will include GourMelt Grilled Cheese, Kenji’s, Sauce Wagon, Red Truck Tahoe, Traffic Jam, Mellow Yellow Food, Lazy Sundae, Battle Born, Wafle Wagon, St. Lawrence Pizza Co., Island Ice, Mount MoGrit, and Taster’s Paradise. Along with all the food, there will be live music provided by local talent. The beer garden is back with local brews served up by Great Basin Brewing Co. The Tumblebus will be there to provide entertainment for the kids. Come on down, enjoy the food and fun, and support local business.

If you’ve yet to attend Food Truck Fridays, check out my photo gallery from the very first event in 2012.

There is another food truck event in town called Reno Street Food. According to the Reno Gazette-Journal, this event will be at  Idlewild Park every other Friday from May 24 to October 4. A check of their website and Facebook page shows nothing new entered for 2013, so I’m not really sure if this is going to come off or not.

http://renotahoe.about.com/b/2013/04/15/food-truck-fridays-in-reno.htm

RENO, Nev.- Reno Food Truck Fridays are back for the 2013 season. Despite a chill in the air on Friday evening, hundreds turned out to the downtown Citicenter to take advantage of gourmet food and live music. The event is designed to support local businesses.

“We do this to promote the local food truck culture and show off all the culinary talents of all these small business owners,” Haley Wood of GourMelt Grilled Cheese Truck said. “We love to see all these people down here, it’s so exciting.”

A lot of the vendors are returning from last year; Great Basin Brewery will be serving up their signature brews all summer long.

“It’s so much fun down here,” Doug Booth of Great Basin said. “The food is great and we enjoy sharing excellent beer with everyone so it’s a good time.”

This year there’s a new addition to the truck lineup: The Biggest Little Fashion Truck will be showing off designer clothes and accessories during the festival.

“This is pretty rad, it’s my first time at this venue and the music is incredible,” Biggest Little Fashion Truck Owner Vincent Lucido said. “The food is great I mean, gourmet food trucks, how can you beat that? Now we have fashion here too so while you’re waiting for your food you can get your fashion on!”

You can catch Food Truck Fridays the first and third Friday of the month through October from 5-9 p.m. at the Citicenter in downtown Reno.

http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/Food-Truck-Fridays-Back-for-Second-Season-201730541.html

By Christopher Ortiz | DigitalHippos.com

This won’t take much of your time, unlike a few of my reviews, since The Cheese Truck is less than a half-hour long. But it’s worth the half-hour you’ll spend since you’ll learn about a small gem in “the biggest little city in the world” known as Reno, Nevada. The film follows Haley and Jessie, two optimistic women who run a small business catering grilled cheese and other popular dishes from a mobile kitchen which they call “Bessie” but who we call “Gourmelt.” Over the course of a breezy half-hour, we get an in-depth and interesting look into how they run their business, a.k.a. what it’s like for anyone who makes their living running a mobile kitchen: does it pay enough? What are the necessary investments? Is it satisfying, especially during difficult economic times?

You’ll get those answers and some change in The Cheese Truck. It was really nice to follow two likeable young ladies who made a slightly-impulsive but heart-driven decision to run a mobile kitchen. They give you plenty of insight on their satisfaction and gripes with the job, such as driving and cooking in the heat, credit card scanners dying at bad times, and fryers slowing down when customers are waiting. But as the narrator, Jason, pointed out: spending time in the kitchen will only make you hungry, and there are more pros than cons in running a mobile kitchen, as it turns out.

Technically, the film is well-made and narrated. The background music helps keep you engaged, keeping the pacing smooth and the entertainment level high. The narration is determined to prove that a city famous for gambling, quick divorces and legalized prostitution right outside the city limits is really just a city full of people contributing their own little stories, and The Cheese Truckis one of the good ones about a couple of caterers who provide an increasingly-popular food service. Search Facebook and you’ll see.

There isn’t much to say without spoiling material and the film is only 26 minutes long, so to sum up, The Cheese Truck is an insightful and well-narrated short documentary about a small gem in Reno, Nevada, sharing what it’s like to run a mobile truck and the satisfaction it can give to the owners. Now I can have a conversation with the next guy that sells me a cheeseburger by my Home Depot. Sweet!

http://digitalhippos.com/film-review/documentary/review-the-cheese-truck

GourMelt truck in action

There are just times when you want comfort food. We all have it and it brings us back to days past and things past. One of my comfort foods is grilled cheese sandwiches and I really, really, really, really like them. Last Friday morning, I got an email from Kyle aboutGourMelt and he basically said we should go have one. I’m always up for an adventure, so I told him that we’d do that the next day. As the course of my Friday went on, I felt the need for some comfort food and as I was able to go, I went to GourMelt.  It was a great choice and helped my day.

The Wiseguy and the Orchard Melt

GourMelt was over at Strega at the corner of Ridge and Arlington (Belmont Road for those over 75), and was stationed there both Friday and Saturday. I jumped out of my car and ambled over to the truck. The truck that GourMelt uses is in excellent shape and is very well put together yellow truck with their great 1950s style logos and graphics wrapped around the front and back side. I got there around 2:00 or so on Friday and surveyed the menu. I asked the lady who was handling the orders, Jessie, what she would recommend. She suggested the Ultimelt and I took her up on the order, with a side of Parmesan garlic fries. I paid in cash (food trucks generally don’t take plastic, but GourMelt does!) and chatted a bit with Jessie, who works there with Haley who was cooking that day. GourMelt is a very new place and just got its start on May 1^st, over at the Earth Day celebration at Idlewild. They try to use local vendors as much as they can: their bread comes from the awesome House of Bread and they get eggs from Reno Eggs and they get their produce from the Great Basin Food Co-op. I stood aside from the order window to let others get their lunches, and got my order as I scoped out the to go menu, took a couple pictures and went home with it.

The Mother Clucker and The Bumble Brie

At home, I had a great lunch outside with a nice glass of soda water and a wonderful grilled cheese sandwich. It was a bit cold as it took me about ten minutes to get home, but it was still perfect and tasty. The cheese was perfectly melted enough to be liquid, but not runny and the bread was toasted and firm, not soggy. The fries were just as great- not too garlicy, and not too parmesany, but subtle and tasty and you could probably still kiss someone after having one. The sandwich and fries hit the spot perfectly and I was ready for another one.

The next day I went with Kyle for a jaunt around around downtown and a sandwich from GourMelt. This time, I had the Orchard Melt, which is a grilled cheese with green apples and instead of the garlic fries, I went with sweet potato fries.  Kyle had the Wiseguy, which is Fontana cheese with salami and artichoke hearts with a salad on the side. We both really liked the sandwiches and it was a good time.

The next time the GourMelt truck comes your way, don’t hesitate to come and get some great food.  The prices are very reasonable for the high quality and wonderful food that they have.  I liked it so much that I went with a co-worker to GourMelt on Tuesday when they were out in front of the Co-Op.  I had the  Bumble Brie which is sliced green apples, ham, honey, and melted brie on cinnamon apple bread with a side of tomato soup.  And she had the Mother Clucker: cheddar cheese, grilled chicken, artichoke hearts, red onion and dijon mustard, melted on rye bread with tomato soup.

If you don’t like salad or fries, the soup is a great choice- it’s really, super fresh and good tomato soup. You can taste that the tomatoes in the soup were only a few hours before tomatoes waiting for the chance to be made into excellent, beautiful soup.  Again, GourMelt hit the spot and made our days.  Like it says on their card: “We will fill your belly and melt your heart.”  They sure have with me.

 http://www.burncards.com/gourmelt-the-best-food-truck-in-reno/

Jessie handing out a great sandwich at GourMelt.

If you like to eat lunch or a late night snack from the mobile food trucks around town, that meal may no longer be available to you. That’s if Reno’s City Council approves new regulations.

RENO, NV – Late Friday night on Sierra Street and Rex Lee is busy serving up chili, pizza, and hot dogs.

He’ll be here until about four in the morning.

“I’m not competing against the brick and mortar. They are closed up, locked up gone home, and having a great time. While we are out here handling a market that is not being covered,” says Rex Lee from Pedal Express.

But that’s not how some restaurants and some in the city view it.

To them, food trucks that operate from parking lots, at various times of the day and night are working at an unfair advantage over restaurants.

That’s the reason for a new set of proposed regulations—regulations food truckoperators say will effectively put them out of business.

But don’t expect these small business owners to drive off into the sunset.

At Dish Restaurant, about two dozen food truck operators met to talk about mobilizing an effective opposition to at least a portion of the regulations.

Take for instance the amount of time a truck can stay in one place.

“The 2 hour time limit would be huge. Its two hours a day and that would cut into our business by one-third,” says Jessie Watner and Haley Wood, owners of the grilled cheese sandwich truck Gourmelt.

Gourmelt received national attention for the grilled cheese sandwiches served from the truck.

While they don’t work at night, many of these other trucks operators do.

The proposed ordinance would prohibit those trucks from operating after ten at night.

“For me it would take me out of the equation,” says Lee.

Other regulations that concern health applications, insurance, and business licenses they group says are already on the books.

“Coming from, I’m not exactly sure, but I think that there is a fear from the brick and mortar that trucks are going to take the business. And I would say to that, you know you have to compete,” says Nancy Horn, owner of Dish Restaurant.

Dish Restaurant finds itself in unique situation. A brick and mortar operation, Nancy and her husband just purchased a truck at a cost of about $100,000 to service other parts of town.

Now with these possible regulations come into play that investment could go down the drain.

http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/135473923.html

Reno proposed regulations this week that are meant to level the playing field between the area’s food trucks and brick-and-mortar restaurants. / AP

It’s a food fight — not in the school cafeteria, but on Reno streets and parking lots.

Reno proposed regulations this week that are meant to level the playing field between the area’s food trucks and brick-and-mortar restaurants. Moving the food truck every two hours and operating only between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. are just two of the new regulations proposed.

“How are we going to conduct business?” said Nancy Horn, owner of Dish Cafe. Horn and her husband, Joe, signed a contract earlier this week to begin building their food truck.

“It doesn’t make any logical sense.”

Horn said her lunch crowd usually runs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., which would make it impossible for a vendor to set up, serve and pack up in an 2-hour span and still make a profit.

The city has no ordinances governing food trucks and other mobile food vendors.

Concerns from Wells Avenue merchants prompted the city to look into developing regulations. The merchants were concerned about taco trucks setting up shop in a private parking lot and never moving despite being licensed as a mobile vendor.

The trucks are taking away customers from permanent businesses that have a higher overhead, said Alex Woodley, city code enforcement manager.

“We are just making sure that if you are a mobile-type business, you conduct your business as such,” he said.

Food trucks are licensed and insured to do business in Reno, but they aren’t regulated by the city. All mobile and brick-and-mortar eateries are inspected by the Washoe County Health Department.

Reno has more than 50 vendors who hold a mobile food vendor business license, but that includes ice cream trucks and catering vans.

The ordinance also clarifies that food trucks cannot park on any highway, street, alley, sidewalk or city-owned or city-operated public parking lot to do business. It is prohibited by state law. Food trucks only can do business on private commercial property with written permission from the owner.

It also imposes a 300-feet restriction around a permanent business selling a similar product. Vendors also can’t park within 300 feet of the property line of a school, church, playground and park without the owner’s permission. The same is true of special events, unless they are part of the event.

School officials were complaining that students weren’t returning to class after lunch because of the trucks, Woodley said.

One of the rules proposed in the new ordinance that prompted the strongest reaction would limit food trucks to operating from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Late nights are prime time for trucks such as Calvin’s Sausages and GourMelt Grilled Cheese Truck, who cater to the bar and nightlife crowds. Most food establishment are closed after 10 p.m., so the only places left to grab food downtown would be the casinos, fast-food restaurants and convenience stores.

“The restriction of 10 p.m. is not supporting the establishments that are asking us to come down and serve their customers,” Horn said.

Businesses that operate after 11 p.m. are required to have a special-use permit, which costs $3,000, Woodley said.

City officials are looking to work with food truck vendors and restaurant owners to craft an ordinance that is fair for both parties, he said.

The drafting process began about two years ago, when a former staffer wrote the original ordinance, Woodley said. But they are just starting the dialog with food truck owners about the regulations with the release of the draft.

State law requires that any businesses affected by a proposed ordinance be given a right to respond if it imposes an economic burden or restricts the operation and expansion of the business, Chaump said.

The public has until Dec. 30 to contact Reno’s business license department.

“We want to have an open meeting with the (mobile food vendors),” Chaump said. “We need their opinion on what would work and what wouldn’t. That is the purpose of the draft. We don’t want to put anyone out of business.”

Chaump will compile an Business Impact Statement that will be presented with the ordinance before the Reno City Council at its Jan. 18 meeting.

http://www.rgj.com/article/20111209/NEWS/111209037/Proposed-Reno-restrictions-food-trucks-meant-level-playing-field-between-trucks-restaurants?odyssey=nav%7Chead

]]> http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2011/12/proposed-reno-restrictions-on-food-trucks-meant-to-level-playing-field-between-trucks-restaurants/feed/ 0 http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2011/09/opinion-don%e2%80%99t-underestimate-deliciousness-of-gourmet-food-trucks/ http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2011/09/opinion-don%e2%80%99t-underestimate-deliciousness-of-gourmet-food-trucks/#comments Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:09:43 +0000 MobileFoodNews.com http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/?p=21800 By Diamond Lambert | NevadaSageBrush.com

Journalism Student & Writer Diamond Lambert

Television has constantly wowed us with all it’s over-the-top food programs. Sure, the end results are spectacular, featuring anything from towers of cupcakes to the world’s largest burritos. As appealing to my palate as these programs may be, I always have to refer to the beauty and simplicity of the mobile food truck.

There are the swirling misnomers of the “roach coach” or  “trash on wheels,” but, is a gourmet food truck any different from the jolly neighborhood ice cream man?

It’s common sense to know you can’t eat from all of them, but there’s a sizeable number that really deliver. And that’s where food trucks become a step above the usual snack mobile and become a mobile fine-dining establishment.

Everyone knows  college students for the most part are broke and often lazy. What could be better than a gourmet meal on wheels just moments from your class?

The University of Nevada, Reno finally got with the program and allowed BoDawgs to set up in front of the Virginia Street Gym starting this fall semester. At first glance the foil-encased bundles in question appear to be a hoagie crossed with a burrito. But look closer and you will see it’s a quarter-pound hotdog made to the food-seeker’s satisfaction.

They offer a decent arrangement of toppings, ranging from cream cheese to pineapple chunks. Everyone is bound to find something appealing on the BoDawgs menu, which seems to have an islander feel.

Taking their noble cause a step further, the company, established in June 2010, donates 10 percent of their profits to Back-Pack Kids, a program offered via the Food Bank of Northern Nevada. This just proves that the roach coach has evolved from the creepy guy lurking on corners with cheap eats to a proper establishment with a mission statement and a satisfying menu.

Los Angeles is well known for its tamale coaches brimming with fresh horchata and artistically peeled exotic fruits. When cruising by in your topless low-rider (if you’re lucky enough to own one) the smell immediately hits you with pangs of spice, coolness and just enough oomph to make your mouth water.

The individuality of food trucks rises above the expected ho-hum of a sit-down establishment. The mobile truck snatches your attention as you walk by. Its prices are often unbeatable and the stories behind their existence come from various backgrounds.

My argument is short — we must never let the mobile food truck stray far from our minds. Someone’s burger (or veggie burger) could be enough to change your life one days urging you to never set foot in another McDonald’s again.

Diamond Lambert studies journalism. She can be reached at opinion@nevadasagebrush.com.