"food trucks" news and stories

Office workers in major cities across the country have been rejoicing at the expansion of their lunchtime options offered by the growing trend of gourmet food trucks, but in one city at least, the trucks are facing mounting opposition from another quarter: restaurant owners.

As Slashfood reported last year, many cities have been taken off guard by the popularity of mobile eateries, uncertain on how to regulate them. Two city councilwomen in New York even sought to impose a "three strikes" law on trucks that flout the city's parking rules.

It somehow comes as little surprise that a city like San Francisco, which prides itself on its progressive reputation, decided to take the opposite tack. Last year, the city set out new regulations that would make it easier for vendors to apply for permits and operate their trucks, including expanding the number of permits a family can apply for from one to seven.

And that's made owners of some brick-and-mortar restaurants very unhappy, according to the Wall Street Journal.

If you've been dreaming of a food truck that sells only mac-and-cheese dishes, you can wake up now. A Chicago food truck is doing just that. The Southern Mac & Cheese Truck, which rolled out earlier this month, claims to offer two dozen types of macaroni-and-cheese, with the options rotating weekly. Should you happen to be in the Windy City this week, you can choose from these four: Cheddar cheese with grilled Vienna beef franks; pulled chicken, blue-cheese and Buffalo sauce; smoked Gouda, apple and walnuts; and sundried tomatoes with caramelized onions.

Here's a juicy item from the L.A. Weekly blog: L.A.'s well-known Flying Pig food truck, which roams the streets of Tinsel Town distributing tacos that are famous for being, well, moist and juicy, has been loaned out for a porn movie called The Flying Pink Pig. The film, out now and starring porn king Ron Jeremy as Sunny Lane, will be followed soon by a sequel, which also features Lane as the operator of a truck besieged by babes who want more than just a dollop of salsa on their hot tamales. We're no prudes, but we have to wonder where this X-rated trend will go. Are we ready for Daniel Does Dallas? How about The Domino Pizza Boy Really Delivers?The Chicks of Chipotle? or maybe Big Mac's Whopper?

In the end, we have to agree with Mimi Sheraton, former restaurant critic for The New York Times, who, although she was not commenting directly on the new food- porn phenomenon, did sum things up nicely when she told The Huffington Post: "I don't know where they eat it, that's what I can't figure out about a truck. Where the hell do you eat it?"

We've grown pretty unfazed with the menu items food carts are now producing, but we never expected booze. But there are a few pending liquor licenses in food-truck-friendly Portland, Oregon.

Former commercial Alaska fisherman Rafael Gaxiola hopes to make his cart the first liquor-approved, reports OregonLive.com. By adding beer and wine to the Mexican-inspired menu at his Deadliest Catch truck, he says, he'll attract more customers for his cart and for those around him -- and raise serious revenue on orders. He doesn't even care where his spot is: "If I get the chance to go somewhere where they'll allow me to have a liquor license, I'll go there in a heartbeat," Gaxiola tells OregonLive.

So do authorities think he's as crazy as we do? Actually, no. Theresa Marchetti, liquor-licensing specialist for Portland's Office of Neighborhood Involvement, tells OregonLive, "It really is up in the air at this point" and says there are plans for meetings to review the possibilty "over the next few months." She adds: "Ultimately, a licensee has to exercise control over the sale of liquor on its premises." Which sort of makes to-go booze an issue.

Some trucks, though, have added roof decks for controlled seating, so the days of mobile bars may not be so far away.

Food trucks have come a long way from the days of hot dogs swimming in tepid, murky water, especially in the gourmet street-food worlds of Los Angeles, New York City and Austin. And nothing's more telling of their climb up the food chain than a pending ABC sitcom, tentatively titled Family Owned -- guess execs liked what they saw in the The Great Food Truck Race, which aired on the Food Network this summer.

Food has certainly taken to the small screen in a big way lately, reaching beyond the food networks and travel channels, beyond stand-and-stir shows (that is, cooking shows) and travelogues. Case in point: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, the recent sketches on Saturday Night Live, and a new cartoon sitcom on FOX we tipped you off to earlier this week, involving a guy named Bob and his burgers.

As Variety reports, this new food-truck sitcom is still in the development phase, but we do know it will be produced by former King of the Hill staffers Tony Gama-Lobo and Rebecca May, along with Warren Littlefield, and will star comedian Al Madrigal (left), who has appeared on Comedy Central and a couple of shows on CBS. Eater explains the concept as a "multigenerational family comedy" that "centers on a son who takes over the family food-truck business."