What the Truck? The Financials of the Food Truck Phenomenon

Don't call it a comeback, they've been here for years.

Yes, food trucks have been serving treats on the streets in North America ever since westward expansion following the American Civil War saw Texas cattlemen travel to New Mexico and through the Canadian prairies supplying meat to the pioneers. But while cattleman were traveling day and night across the continent to feed the settlers, no one was feeding them -- that is, until a man named Charles Goodnight came along in 1866 and invented the first food truck, the chuckwagon.

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Fast forward to the late 1950s, and mobile canteens or field kitchens endorsed by the U.S. Army were serving hungry soldiers on army bases across America. Not to mention the "roach coaches" (named for their reputation for questionable sanitation) that became mobile cafeterias for hundreds of blue collar guys working in construction and city infrastructure.

Now, evidenced by shows like Eat St., food trucks are back with a vengeance. However, these new models aren't even close to a chuckwagon or roach coach, beyond a common lineage. These days, thanks to a down economy and a surplus of laid-off skilled restaurateurs, many culinary ex-pats have taken to the road to pilot new concepts and live out their dreams of deliciousness -- all to the benefit of a hungry and eager public.

So eager in fact, that a healthy Twitter or Facebook following guarantees lines sometimes a few hundred deep around the block and a dedicated set of groupies who follow trucks around town to wherever they may set up shop for the lunch or dinner rush.

Who could fault such rabid food truck fandom when such culinary comestibles as the artisan grilled cheese sandwiches of Toronto's Gorilla Cheese, the block busting BBQ of Vancouver's The Re-Up, or the Filipino fusion comfort food of Edmonton's Filistix are on offer?

This freak-out for food trucks has been happening all across North America, but this new wave started first in Los Angeles, California in 2008. It began, I'm sure, the way many ideas do: at 4 a.m. in the morning, after a night of intense bar-hopping, when 34-year-old Filipino Mark Manguera was commiserating with his Korean sister-in-law Alice Shin over some street tacos and a glass of champagne.

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"I'm biting into my taco and it dawned on me, 'Alice, wouldn't it be great if someone put Korean barbecue on a taco?,'" Manguera recalled to the L.A. Times in 2009.

Most people would've chalked-up the idea to drunk talk, but Manguera actually followed through. He bought a truck from taco-truck heavyweight Cater Craft, recruited Shin to tweet and blog compulsively about the truck's whereabouts and brought in Roy Choi -- a former chef de cusine at the Beverly Hilton Hotel who, at that time, found himself recently fired from RockSugar, after helping to launch what is basically the Cheesecake Factory's experiment in pan-Asian cuisine. Along with Manguera's wife Caroline, the three of them became the key players of Kogi BBQ, -- a Mexican-Korean BBQ fusion truck that, thanks to the power of social media, turned its every arrival into a cultural event.

Manguera and company pulled in $2 million U.S. in revenue in their first year, and have since expanded to five food trucks and a $30,000 restaurant in a strip-mall. The trucks see 3,000 people a night, with the restaurant seating an additional 1,000, all for $2.29 short rib tacos and $6 Kimchi Quesadillas.

"This is my graffiti," Choi told the L.A. Times. "It's not Korean food, It's a Korean-American kid translating the food from his country into the present-day life of L.A. It's everything I see: the Latinos working in the Korean market, the bus that I ride."

Whatever it was, it was working, and it spread quickly up and down North America's westcoast, as recently laid-off chefs became inspired by the possibilities and drawn in by the low entry-fee.

"Opening a restaurant can cost upwards of $300,000 before a customer walks in the door, but launching a food truck starts at about $35,000," Lizzy Caston Globe and Mail. She's an urban planner and food writer who advises municipalities on how to enable sustainable street-food cultures. Of course, buying the truck can mean costs rise rapidly almost immediately, but food trucks have a rather obvious and ongoing advantage that restaurants don't. "You can go where the people are," Caston continued. "You're not stuck in a location that can't make money."

Social media marketing is free and it also helps if your city has lax street-vending and street-food laws. Just ask the people of Portland, Oregon, their permissive street-food laws have led to a veritable explosion of food trucks in the city, so much so that many mistakenly believe that the food truck phenomenon started there.

"I would describe their attitude toward regulation as laissez-faire," said Carston, who happens to be a Portland native.

"In the 1950's and onward, a lot of cities re-regulated to prevent what they called 'street peddlers' or mobile food vendors – part of that 1950's urban renewal where they got rid of sidewalks and put in freeways. Portland never did that sort of thing, so it's not so much what Portland did as what they haven't done. If you're on land that is zoned commercial, meaning you could put a restaurant or a home business there, and you have a business license and get the appropriate permits, which are fairly straightforward, you can have a food cart. It does not need to move every 30 or 45 minutes as it does in some cities – as long as it has axles and can be hauled away at some point, it is considered a mobile food unit."

Though Vancouver isn't the wild west that Portland is when it comes to regulation, the additional 19 food truck licenses selected by foodies and awarded by the city in April 2011, bolstered the 17 food trucks that were already established in 2010 -- leading to what looks like the first food truck boom for any Canadian city.

The rules themselves are straight forward: the vending license costs $278.30 plus HST and all one needs are the appropriate permits and insurance information, with replacement permits costing $20.00. All the city asks is that you keep the truck clean and provide a garbage, not park in front of a school during school hours, not be operating at the wee hours of the morning, not be serving food west of Main st. and move on to a new location once all customers in the current location are served.

There is also a burgeoning food truck scene in Edmonton, a city that just pulled off its first Food Truck Festival, What the Truck?, to critical raves last summer. Edmonton Journal columnist Gurvinder Bhatia believes its trucks like Filistix, Funky Pickle, Eva Sweet Waffles, Nomad Kitchen, Molly's Eats and Drift -- along with Edmonton's cafe scene -- that have really pulled Edmonton into the 21st Century when it comes to gourmet dining:

"Ironically, it is also the food trucks that are helping raise the bar with respect to the quality and diversity of food in our city. Too many conventional restaurateurs have been stuck in a time warp and have neither evolved their menus nor the quality of their food (and don't even get me started on their wine lists) since the 1980s. As the food truck and cafe culture continue to pull Edmonton's food scene (sometimes kicking and screaming) into the 21st Century, many of the Rip Van Winkle restaurants may see a decline in customers unless they finally wake up."

The problem though, in his opinion, is the city bylaws holding a full-scale food truck revolution back. "The public is still catching on and we need to push our city council even more to understand the need to modernize our bylaws to facilitate the evolution of the mobile food culture, which serves to get more people out on our city streets...a positive thing for any modern, vibrant, livable city."

Still though, Edmonton's situation is far from Montreal, which is Canada's biggest city to ban food from being sold on their streets. It has been that way for decades with the city bylaws decreeing that the banning of food trucks was "for hygiene" and to "limit restaurant competitors." However, there is one food truck brave enough to fly in the face of these laws. Grumman '78 was inspired by a trip to Mexico in 2010 and serves as Montreal's only taco truck. However, because of the strict laws, Grumman '78 can only sell their morsels at community events.

Though they don't face almost a complete ban like Montreal, Toronto's expensive vending fees, extremely militant health and safety laws and a 2002 moratorium on issuing additional food truck licenses have all lead to a very mundane food truck scene.

"We won't even look at the application," a city licensing representative told Toronto Life. This because of seemingly irrational fears of traffic congestion, the possibility of hot oil splashing around the city and just an overall feeling that there are already too many food trucks on the road.

In a 2007 amendment to these laws, food trucks were finally allowed to cook whatever they wanted because they operated like enclosed kitchens, but food carts are still limited to just hamburgers, hotdogs and fries. (Though, some found enough of a loophole to add baked potatoes and corned beef sandwiches.)

Yet, that doesn't make it any easier for Toronto food trucks, there are still many prohibitive rules. They can only operate on private property within the downtown core and public property outside the core, which means lots of deals with parking lots and landlords. It does take the "mobile" out of mobile food operation. They are also subject to the same food safety regulations of a commercial kitchen and cannot park in front of schools or places of worship.

Despite all this, there are still a few rebellious heroes trying to make a go of it, but some of Toronto trucks are just vehicle versions of existing stationary restaurants. There's Zane Caplansky, of Caplansky's Delicatessen, and his converted Purulator van, Thundering Thelma and the four-wheel version of Smoke's Poutinerie.

Thankfully, a few more trucks began as restaurants on wheels first. Joining Gorilla Cheese, there's the rock 'n' roll mobile sandwich press that is The Toasted Tangerine, The American comfort food of The Food Cabbie, the greek offerings of The Blue Donkey Streatery, the eco-friendly foodstuffs of El Gastronomo Vegabundo and the rebirth of soft-serve at Twirlees Ice Cream.

Other cities across Ontario have also gotten into the act. You'll find the dessert that eats like a meal at Hamilton's Cupcake Diner and popcorn, that is not related to the famous order of men, at Shriner's Creek Kettle Popcorn in Niagra. The only time Torontonians got to see food trucks from across the province was during it's first food truck festival called Food Truck Eats, which was held twice last summer and once last fall in The Distillery District. You can also catch them at The Street Food Block Party in May.

With supportive city leadership and bylaws that are a little more reasonable, it's possible to turn a city's pilot project into a thriving food truck scene. This is what Calgary did last year when food trucks started to emerge and petitioned the mayor to make it easier for them to do business. At the same time, Mayor Naheed Nenshi was undergoing his Cut Red Tape campaign, which was aimed at eliminating unecessary and cumbersome laws. So using the existing permits given to vehicles for special events, Calgary was able to award 10 food truck liscenses. Some of those fortunate enough to get one were, gourmet fries truck, Fries and Dolls, Ukrainian truck, Perogy Boyz and,Vietnamese truck, The Noodle Bus.

Unfortunately, fewer cities are going the way of Calgary and more are starting to agree with Toronto and Montreal, even originators of the trend like Los Angeles and New York. Incumbent restauranteurs across the U.S. are starting to complain that they are losing business to the food trucks in their neighbourhood. According to Slate Magazine, in response, anti-truck politicans have started trying to pass state laws that make it difficult for food trucks to do business. For example, California Assemblyman Bill Manning has introduced a bill that says a food truck can't park within 1500 feet of a school.

Obstensibly, this is because he wants students to eat the food inside the cafeteria, instead of the potential junk food served by the food truck, which may make sense, until your realize the law doesn't apply to McDonalds' or Carl's Jr and only to food trucks. Not to mention, it assumes all the food trucks in California are unhealthy. A lot of cities, including Toronto, have bylaws that say you can't park a certain distance from a restaurant -- sometimes the law is only restricted a restaurant serving the same food as the truck.

Before now, many states where food trucks were thriving just didn't enforce that law and now there are rumoured plans to start cracking down. New York started kicking food trucks out of Midtown in the summer of last year, controling where the trucks can park. Restauranteurs and residents have also alleged that the trucks are dumping garbage into the city's drainage system.

Our advice is to enjoy the food truck trend while it's here because it could disappear just as quickly as 2008's recession kicked it off.