from Civil Eats:
Street Food Provides Economic Freedom: Is Success Just a Tweet Away?August 29th, 2011 By Susie Wyshak
“For folks who have cooked their whole lives, taking business into their own hands with their family by their sides, is a huge risk. But it provides potentially huge freedom,” said Caleb Zigas, director of San Francisco’s La Cocina culinary incubator summarizing the second National Street Food Conference at Fort Mason in San Francisco.
The conference, held August 21-22, united street food entrepreneurs and mobile vending policy makers from around the country to share experiences and insights around trends, marketing, and money. Conversations about freedom, daring, and risk wove throughout each session.
“There’s a transition from street food being something you had to seek out,” said Zigas. “In a lot of ways it’s a trend and vendors are easier to find. Now they’re ‘cartepreneurs.” Communications and urban planning consultant Lizzy Caston said, “Street food changes lives.” With a pulse on the Portland and New Orleans food truck scenes, she observed, “It’s integral to communities and keeping people in the black. Allowing trucks is an efficient way for cities to put economic development funds to work.”
With start-up expenses in the many thousands in San Francisco (that’s just for city application fees) and differing laws per city and per county (making the business expansion Orwellian), the launch into street food can be onerous. Getting permitted is often the major challenge of starting up. “What we’re seeing in cities today reflects the way things used to be,” said author Robb Walsh. He pointed out it was Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle that generated an outcry about sanitation, leading to “a huge wave of legislation that put into effect the health codes that began to regulate street food between 1907-1910.” ..........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://civileats.com/2011/08/29/street-food-provides-economic-freedom-is-success-just-a-tweet-away/