Hey girl, this is tank top regulation

The Dallas City Council’s Quality of Life Committee met this morning (and is probably still meeting) about potentially lowering the costs of streetscape licensing and street vending permits in downtown Dallas. Generally, I think this is good news for the city. Lowering the costs = potentially more restaurants with outdoor seating/more food trucks in Dallas = more pedestrians enjoying downtown =  everyone is happy. In George Lewis’ words, “Fees can be onerous, simply because food trucks are mobile, which means multiple cities.  Multiply $300 – $600 for all of the cities: Dallas, University Park, Highland Park, Arlington, Denton, FW, Carrollton, Garland, etc. and you rack up a chunk of government money.”

I snuck out of the meeting after the streetscape licensing part because I had to get back to the office, but the vending permits Powerpoint is on the committee briefings page, anyway.

The proposal is to cut vending licenses by half to $600 annually. Right now, food trucks are allowed to operate between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. daily, but the proposed update would extend those hours to 10 p.m. (Mon-Thursday, Sunday) and midnight (Friday and Saturday). There’s also a suggestion to require photo ID badges for all vendors, prohibit smoking by vendors while operating in the vending locations, and to establish a dress code. All these are unregulated right now and sound pretty fair, except… what’s up with this dress code? Take a look for yourself:

Appendix B: Proposed Dress Code

• Proposed minimum dress requirements for vendors include the following
• Clothing must be neat, clean and sanitary at all times
• Walking shorts allowed, but no cut-offs ◦ No apparel with offensive or suggestive language,images, symbols
• No tank tops or halter tops
• No outer apparel made of fishnet or undergarment material

I don’t know about you, but I can imagine  it gets pretty hot in a food truck when the weather reaches over 100 degrees. No tank tops?? Perhaps people are afraid of tank tops for chest hair or other sanitary reasons (deodorant should do the trick), but George makes another good observation. “Funny thing about required clothing.  Pretty dumb… no tank tops or halter tops, yet Hooter’s, Twin Peaks?  Where’s the consistency?”

And those ladies even get to work indoors.

Overall, the city’s stance on food trucks seems to be heading in a fair direction. “In general, despite the occasional carping by the public about how behind Dallas is, I think that the city permitting and enforcement has done a pretty good job,” says George.

http://sidedish.dmagazine.com/2013/05/13/food-truck-operators-might-not-be-able-to-wear-tank-tops-anymore/

French chef Adam West is ditching his fine dining past and taking to the streets. His food truck named after the provocative and popular ingredient bacon is scheduled to roll out in November.

[UPDATE November 21: The food truck is now open. Find it on November 21, 2012 at the Garland Public Shooting Range, 2606 Pleasant Valley Road in Garland.]

“You have to be really careful of trends,” West said. “One of the things that never really goes out of style is, well, junk food.” He’ll call his new food truck Unforsacon Bacon.

Another food truck in DFW, The Bacon Wagon, is also bacon-themed. It opened in November 2011.

West was most recently executive chef at Monarch, the restaurant inside Hotel ZaZa Houston. Before that, he worked at Dragonfly in Hotel ZaZa Dallas and the now-closed Jeroboam. He chose to leave his post at Monarch in Houston to try this new concept, saying, “it’s simply my time.”

“All my training is has been in fine dining, and I’m really taking a step into unknown territory,” he said. His concept for Unforsacon Bacon is not fine dining on wheels, however; it’ll be street food inspired with bacon.

“Sure, I could do a Kobe beef burger with foie gras on it for $35 and sell maybe one a day, or I could do a simple burger with good bacon on it and charge $5 each and sell 100 a day,” he said. “I’m not going to worry about who I offend or who I try to impress.”

He will return to Dallas in August and will work on Unforsacon Bacon full time.

http://whateverblog.dallasnews.com/2012/11/unforsacon-bacon-food-truck-now-open-and-ready-to-bring-greasy-deliciousness-to-dallas.html/