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 Post subject: Truckonomics
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 12:49 pm 
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Joined: Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:03 am
Posts: 5280
Location: Portland, OR
Folks,

As you know, I'm not a big fan of the food truck craze. However, this article has a very solid analysis of the economic drivers and risks of food trucks:

http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/45352 ... -economics

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 Post subject: Re: Truckonomics
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 7:54 am 
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Joined: Thu Dec 18, 2008 7:18 pm
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Fuzzy, refresh my memory - why don't you like food trucks?


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 Post subject: Re: Truckonomics
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 9:13 am 
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Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2008 5:35 am
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Location: Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Thanks, Fuzzy! That was a wonderful article; I have forwarded it to one of my struggling restaurant friends.


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 Post subject: Re: Truckonomics
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 9:31 pm 
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Location: Portland, OR
Darcie,

Specifically, I'm not fond of food trucks in San Francisco. I rather like them in Portland, where they have a different setup and are part of a different culture.

Basically, I don't see SF food trucks as an economically viable phenominon long-term; I believe that they are being entirely supported by hipster faddism and predict that 90% of them will disappear in the next dot-com crash. As such, infrastructure devoted to them and competition they make with storefront restaurants can be regarded as long-term economic damage; when the trucks go away, we'll be left with fewer restaurants than we had before, and food trucks are being pushed as an alternative to fixing the city's baroque and larceny-laden food service bureaucracy.

There's also some reasons to be annoyed with them, such as:
  • They use up parking and public space in a city where both are scarce
  • They're big air polluters
  • Most of them serve inferior food at higher prices than storefront casual restaurants
  • They're overwhelmingly meat-heavy

The last is, of course, Just Me, but it's a substantial reason I don't care for them much.

Despite all the foregoing, it is true that food trucks offer opportunities to new restaurantiers that they otherwise would not have had, something I didn't believe a year ago. For example, I met some Peruvians at a food truck in SOMA Streat Park who had literally moved to California a month prior and were running their own food cart, hoping to build up to a real restaurant someday. SOMA Streat is also an example of the good side of food trucks; that outdoor cafe with 9 food trucks provides easy food in an area where there were no restaurants of any kind before.

So, while I remain dubious about food trucks and not keen on changing city regulations to be more accessible to them, my opinion on truckutopia is more moderate than it was. Mind you, I still think that SF, as a city, should be focusing on becoming more hospitable to real restaurants instead of encouraging trucks. Time to write some letters to the Supes ...

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