While food trucks serve up breakfast, lunch, and dinner to hungry office workers and foodies, some vendors say the city of Boston needs to make some changes to help the mobile gourmets thrive.
In an open letter to the city of Boston, Adam Gendreau, co-owner and co-operator of the Staff Meal food truck, wrote that while the city has worked hard to get its food truck initiative off the ground, it needs to retool its food truck system and add more locations in busy neighborhoods to ensure businesses cover enough profitable areas and times.
“I fear that if more spots aren’t made available, the industry will see 2012 with little to no cultural growth, if it sees much of anything at all,” Gendreau states in the letter.
Because the culture of street food is new to Boston, Gendreau says the city should begin concentrating food trucks in highly populated areas with heavy foot traffic — such as the Back Bay — to help the businesses earn a profit and a following, and then allow the trend to spread through the city.
“In taking the position of a city that wants to please everyone, everywhere with this program, I think we’re actually damaging the awareness of the industry by not centralizing it immediately,” the letter states.
According to its website, the city has established 18 food truck locations across 11 neighborhoods for 15 licensed food truck businesses. Each truck operates on set href=”http://www.cityofboston.gov/business/mobile/schedule-tabs.asp”schedule.
Gendreau said in a phone interview that he initially thought spreading locations throughout the city was a good idea, too, but has learned from experience that the city’s food truck industry is too young to flourish under this model that he says doesn’t offer enough fruitful spots for the industry to grow as a whole.
“Once the industry is strong we can kind of use ourselves as a platform to move,” he said, but for now suggested the city change its model to add more locations, especially in Back Bay and the Financial District, and allow multiple trucks to cluster in one area.
“The city right now has a system that would not allow any truck to earn a living,” he said.
While Back Bay has four food truck locations, vendors have had few inroads to the Financial District where there demand is high for a quick lunch, Gendreau said. The City Hall Plaza location closed in November as scheduled, while a spot at Post Office Square closed without warning and has not returned.
Vendors instead use the Rose F. Kennedy Greenway’s food truck program to get close to customers downtown. The Greenway allows trucks to set up in clusters near South Station, the Aquarium, and Chinatown. Gendreau said the Greenway has been a willing and helpful partner, but he is looking to the city to do more.
“Why should we have to rely on the privatized Greenway program when we have a city program?” he said.
Gendreau posted the letter on the Greater Boston Mobile Food Collaborative site and has received dozens of responses, including thoughts from the president of Boston Area Food Truck Association, and the owners of local food trucks Bon Me, Cupcakery, and Go Fish, in less than a week.
While commenters said they appreciate the work the city has done so far, they echoed Gendreau’s argument that more attention needs to be paid to adding locations, and promoting the food truck culture with centralized clusters.
“Hopefully [city officials] take our consensus opinion more seriously and decide to take action,” Gendreau said.
Officials from the city’s food truck program did not return calls seeking comment.
Email Kaiser at johanna.yourtown@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @JohannaKaiser.
Open all references in tabs: [1 – 7]