The food-truck phenomenon is rapidly becoming the little segment that could. With estimated annual sales of about $5 billion, barely 1 percent of the total foodservice industry, the mobile movement continues to attract attention and create controversy far in excess of its modest size.
While vendors hawking food to commuters and construction workers have long been fixtures in metropolitan areas, the new generation is more about culinary and social connections than convenience. Ground zero of the food-truck revolution is Portland, Ore., a city that is both a laboratory for food experimentation and a poster child for political populism in its approach to regulation. The city’s roughly 600 carts, as they’re called locally, are mostly tethered to pods, or designated parking lots, where they have become dining destinations. Keeping most carts from cruising the streets helps defuse thorny competitive issues with traditional operators and helps bring new options into underserved locations.
Carts are international. The sheer range of cuisines on offer in Portland is astonishing. There’s Peruvian and Polish, Israeli and Egyptian, Swedish and Samoan. Celtic cuisine sits cheek-by-jowl with German sausages and Vietnamese pho. There’s more familiar fare at carts like Starchy and Husk, which offers Gran Torino Mac and Cheese with pancetta and butternut squash, along with gluten-free sweet-potato hush puppies. The People’s Pig features porchetta sandwiches, consisting of pork tenderloin roasted inside pork belly, sliced and garnished with arugula or cabbage and apples. Homegrown Smoker Natural Barbecue caters to vegans with options like Fillet O’ Fu, a nori-breaded tofu, and Shroomaloaf, a mushroom sandwich with dairy-free cheese.
Carts are democratic. It’s no coincidence that the food-cart revolution sprouted with the onset of the recession. For out-of-work chefs, job-seeking culinary school grads and unemployed entrepreneurs with an itch to try their hand at foodservice, the relatively inexpensive carts have obvious allure. Carts have also come of age in the thick of the digital revolution, which has turned cart operators with laptops and cell phones into marketing executives. For consumers, there’s no cover charge, no tipping and no pretension. Creative names, including Kim Jong Grillin’, Thai Me Up, Lebaneser Scrooge and Give Pizza a Chance, give the carts a sense of fun and make them more approachable.
Carts are interactive. Lots of attention has gone to the crucial role of the Internet in building awareness about carts as well as the carts’ ability to build community as patrons gather around them. Conversations with cartgoers suggest another phenomenon: Dedicated cart connoisseurs rave about face-to-face contact with the person they perceive has just made their food. Fans talk about direct contact with the operator, with whom they are frequently on a first-name basis. There’s a personal dimension driving many of these transactions, an experience that can get lost in larger chains.
Looking ahead, expect Portland to remain a harbinger of cart trends. Among recent developments is the arrival of the first hairstyling cart — a nifty way to get fed and coiffed at one spot — for which appointments are booked, naturally, online. In addition, initiatives by some cart operators to secure liquor licenses has opened a dialogue with city officials and could provide a useful template for operators in other cities.
Nancy Kruse, president of The Kruse Company, is a menu trends analyst based in Atlanta. E-mail her at nancykruse@aol.com.
