Beep, beep, sell

When you say food truck nowadays, most folks think of the wave of gourmet mobile feasts available these days near offices and at fairs. But in reality, this category has had a long history and includes the childhood favorite, the ice cream truck. The push-carts filled with Hispanic Popsicles, elotes, fried treats at the carnivals, and the Thunderbird lunch trucks at construction sites all are in the same category. The difference today is that the humble carts have upgraded and refigured themselves to include fresh made and/or made in truck to order foods of an endless array. The common fast foods are still available on carts and trucks, but the new iteration has included all types of cuisines, specialties, and gourmet items, ethnic menus are particularly popular on trucks as customers are seeking new experiences from the everyday lunch brake.

Lunch carts, carts of produce, and snacks are not a new concept. The blue-collar workforce has been utilizing the "roach coaches"over many generations now in America. These outlets are typically smaller trucks than this new edition, and they offer mostly prepackaged and precooked items in hot holding and refrigerated compartments on board. The larger and more diverse offerings revamped the idea of movable foods as the "roach coaches" popularity was in decline, and the desire for something new to eat was increasing. Chefs with established businesses and new upcoming chefs, saw an opportunity to expand their audiences. The city of Chicago was a bit later to the scene as the legislation that governed the food service industry was too constrictive to permit the new style of trucks. This wave crashed into another new concept that also was not permitted in Cook County, the concept of the shared kitchen.

The shared kitchen concept is simple enough, a kitchen approved and inspected, would allow more than one licensed company to use its facility. This ruffled more than one feature at city hall and it took a legal battle to lessen the laws about this concept and the food trucks to get my city to realize the world was changing and we needed to be apart of the new wave instead of getting drowned by it. New York and Los Angeles both had jumped ahead of Chicago with this concept and other cities like St. Louis and Memphis were sit to join the wave.

Now that the legal battle is done, and food trucks are popping up all over like the pop-up restaurant phenomenon, Chicago is firmly set in the newest craze. A large part of the legal battle for Chicago was about the place of food preparation. Chicago did not want to give licenses to truck operations that would be cooking on the truck itself. The traditional lunch truck was stocked with items prepackaged and prepped foods from a licensed outlet, therefore, the truck was only serving food that was held at proper temperature. Culinarians in this city asked the question "if the preparing person is licensed to legally prepare food for sale, and the truck has the proper equipment, then why can't food be prepared on board?" Licenses were given to the cruise ships at Navy Pier to prepare food on-board so why can't a truck be licensed? Chicago was practically the last metropolis to approve of food truck operation, in fact we had the distinction of being the only city in the U.S. that did not allow food trucks to cook on board.

Food trucks are now having their own fests in small towns, suburban areas, special events, and even weddings, movie shoots, corporate picnics, and expos. The diversity of offerings and the locations that they can service is wide open now leading to a greater opportunity for increasing or building a dedicated audience for a chef. There is one bit yet that limits where a food truck can operate, they must park their trucks no closer than 200 feet away from any restaurant, which almost completely eliminates their ability to park in downtown Chicago.

The same safety and sanitation legislation that applies to brick and mortar food establishments apply to trucks, and most truck outlets either are an extension of a traditional restaurant or have a dedicated kitchen to produce or prep their food offerings.  Permits, additional licenses, health inspections, sanitation inspections, may all be required depending upon location of operation. All of this insures that the consumer is protected from negative impacts to their health from purchasing the food offerings.

No matter if the truck is an extension of your favorite restaurant, or something very new to you, they can offer a new dinning experience that may change your idea of what you are craving. Gourmet donuts, Philippine tacos, Spanish tapas, to Indian curries can be had by way of a short walk to your vendor's truck.