Food Carts and Trucks

[carpetbagger, esq.]

None at the University of Virginia or Vanderbilt University when I was going to undergrad and law school. That may have changed, although I doubt it.

I did, however, have an excellent crepe from a guy in a little cart in Charleston, SC...not sure how close he gets to the College of Charleston campus though (when I saw him, he was in the historic district kinda on the opposite side of where the campus is)...i guess anything's possible.

[Soup]

None at the University of Virginia or Vanderbilt University when I was going to undergrad and law school. That may have changed, although I doubt it.

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I'm an Alum at UVA and NorthWestern. Both places were completely devoide of anything interesting on grounds/campus. I'm assuming, as another poster mentioned, that it is because of the cartering contracts worked out by the university. I was @ UVA when the catering changed from university run operation to mariott. Not a huge difference but I actually thought, it was better when it was run by the university. But even during the university run period, no food cart really existed. I wonder why?

I was in C'ville last fall and @ NorthWestern last summer. Still did not see food carts but perhaps I missed it. Off grounds/campus, thank goodness, eclectic choices abound.

Soup

[MarketStEl]

Okay, come up!  The closest ethnic truck to the Phyly airport?  (United has stopped food service on cross country flights, and I refuse to buy the catered boxes!)

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Closest ethnic food truck to PHL?

How long is your layover?

The closest neighborhoods to Philadelphia International Airport are Eastwick (what's left of it) and whatever the area around the stadiums is called (Packer Park comes to mind, but I think that's east of the stadiums). Neither, AFAICT, are known for having interesting ethnic food trucks.

You'd probably have to hop a cab to University City to get to the closest good ethnic food truck. Unless you had three or more hours' layover, doing this would put you at risk of missing your connecting flight. You may just have to settle for the eateries in the airport shopping concourse, which are better than they were as recently as 10 years below.

[Chris Amirault]

Bumping this topic up.

I had a blast researching this Edible Rhody article on chimi trucks on Providence's south side. Most of the trucks stick to Broad Street, though some can be seen around town and on college campuses. There's also a new Chinese Iron Wok truck installed most afternoons and evenings on Thayer Street on Brown's campus.

As this topic has been dormant for a few years, I'd be eager to see what has come and gone from your streets!

[Moopheus]

Bumping this topic up.

As this topic has been dormant for a few years, I'd be eager to see what has come and gone from your streets!

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I'm pretty sure that Goosebeary's is still around MIT, because my wife has mentioned them--they hang out behind her building. Now she is telling me there also is a vegan truck called Clover, a middle eastern truck, and a Mexican truck.

I recall that when I worked in one of Harvard's libraries, there was a falafel truck that parked behind the Yard, near the science building. But that was twenty years ago, so I have no idea what's there now. I do remember that the falafel was pretty good--a good deal for lunch on a library assistant's pay.

[Smitty]

In Lansing Michigan (next door to Michigan State University) a chain of carts called "El Oasis" have popped up in the past 2 years and have been very successful (from my observation). They are even open in the winter (nothing like a great pastor taco in 15 degree weather ). One is about a block from my place. I actually got a Torta from it a couple of hours ago.

They even serve beef tongue and cheek. (and had civiche before the health dept got wind of it)

Here is some coverage from locals:

Lansing City Pulse

Lansing Food News

from Spartan Tailgate (a MSU sports message board)

Spicy Biscotti

I know Lansing probably seems like an odd place for a chain of taco carts but it actually has a pretty large Hispanic population (for a mid-sized northern city) because of the manufacturing and agricultural history. That said the clientle (from my unscientific study) is at least 75% non-hispanic.

[Chris Amirault]

Interesting Grub Street piece on starting up a food truck/cart in NYC. Some snippets:

High volume and excellent margins can be a reality for trucks. For this pizza concept the profit margin was estimated to be over 50 percent, as compared to a good restaurant, where the margins aren’t greater than 10 percent, if you're lucky.

The Truck: This is the relatively easy part, as food trucks are readily available online. Budget $75,000 to $100,000 for the acquisition and retrofitting of the truck. (Kenny Lao bought his Rickshaw Dumpling Truck on the "Commercial Trucks" section of eBay.)

There is an unspoken law of the street that says seniority plays — and that if you try to park on a corner or stretch that has long been occupied by someone else, you will pay a hefty price. We asked Kenny Lao why he doesn't just set up shop in the meatpacking district, which on a weekend night would seem as high-volume as locations come, and he indicated that the reason was in part the threat of violence from existing vendors.

[jsmeeker]

I just returned from another BBQ run to the Central Texas area (area around Austin). While there, we discovered the thriving food truck/trailer/cart scene that is going on in the state capitol. Various types of mobile things scattered all about. Taco trucks. BBQ trailers. Pizza. Sausage. Belgian fries. L.A. inspired Korean BBQ taco places (one place has the catchy name of TaKorea) A real diverse mix.

As mentioned, they are scattered all about. Lots of them in the 6th street night life district, catering to late night eats for the bar crowd (these are the ones we saw) After doing some research at http://austinfoodcarts.com/ we discovered there are some areas (empty lots?) that may host several trucks or trailers. In a future visit to Austin, I'll have to explore this scene in depth. But I did get to try two places on Friday and Saturday nights.

Chi'Lantro

One Taco

Too bad a city like Dallas couldn't really support something like this. At least, I am pretty sure it couldn't.

[LindaK]

I have very fond memories of the food trucks in Philadelphia when I was teaching at Penn...since then, I've heard that the city has cracked down on them, consolidating locations and enforcing code issues.

Here in Boston, there's nothing like them. No place to park, for one thing.