9.1. SR 11-20-2017 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

2 Vegas, has observed that food trucks help his business by bringing new customers to the neighborhood.9 Furthermore, historical evidence suggests that banning food trucks from an area in which they currently operate will harm nearby restaurants by decreasing the number of potential customers. For example, when street vendors were banned from New York’s Lower East Side and Chicago’s Maxwell Street Market, brick-and-mortar businesses complained that they suffered lower revenues as a result.10 Simply put, food trucks draw people out of their offices and homes and into the community, opening their eyes to all of the meal options their neighborhood has to offer. 2. Food trucks provide restaurants with a great way to market and expand their business. All over the country, restaurant owners are launching their own food trucks. For example, the owners of Curried, an Indian restaurant in Chicago, started a food truck with the same name in order to better market the restaurant. Mission accomplished: “We’ve definitely seen an increase in business at the restaurant,” says Scott Gregerson, Curried’s managing partner.11 Jose Hernandez, general manager at POPS Cheesestakes in Las Vegas, says that the business at the restaurant’s physical location has been boosted by the restaurant’s food truck: “The truck has been great advertising.”12 Brian Pekarcik and Rick Stern, co-owners of Spoon and BRGR restaurants in Pittsburgh, just launched a BRGR truck for the same reason. “As brand recognition, it's a great advertising piece,” they explained. “And we expect that it will drive customers to our restaurants.”13 Similarly, Paul Lee, owner of The Winchester restaurant in Grand Rapids, Mich., explained that he opened the What the Truck food truck to serve “as an extension of [T]he Winchester. It allows for us to reach a greater audience and provide something unique to the city.”14 3. Food trucks often serve as incubators for new restaurants. Several restaurants got their start as food trucks: Many chefs with a great concept, but without enough capital to start their own restaurant, launched food trucks to bring their cuisine to customers. Finding success in the food-truck arena, these chefs then accumulated enough capital to launch their own restaurants. For example, the New York Food Truck Association has 42 members , and 40 percent of them—including Mexicue, Souvlaki GR and Schnitzel & Things—now also have brick-and-mortar establishments.15 These entrepreneurs are not an anomaly. Hundreds of other food-truck owners, including those profiled on the next page, have also opened new restaurants. Without the availability of the food-truck business model, these chefs might not have been able to open their restaurants. In sum, food trucks provide a boost to a city’s restaurant industry.