Athens More Progressive Than Atlanta
Posted by Hillary Brown | March 26th, 2010 | Filed under News
Image of the Farm Cart from the Athens Banner-Herald
Today’s Athens Banner-Herald has an article about the possibility of the unified city-county government considering expanding the number of permits it issues for street vendors. As is, Athens-Clarke County issues 25 permits total for vendors of all kinds between downtown and the nearby University of Georgia campus, meaning those who would serve us delicious food compete with those who sell hippie jewelry or knock-off designer sunglasses. Competition for the permits is serious, with people sometimes camping out overnight to have a chance at one, but many of those who hold them only set up for home football games. Olivia Sargeant, of the Farm Cart, has asked Mayor Heidi Davison to consider expanding the number of permits and modifying the health code rules vendors must meet to make them more reasonable, and it seems as though the ACC commission might be receptive.
Sargeant’s Farm Cart will be in Atlanta today for the Atlanta Street Food Coalition’s rally/urban picnic at the Sweet Auburn Curb Market from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., where we hope to see many of you.
Coming to a Location Near You?
Posted by Christiane Lauterbach | March 26th, 2010 | Filed under Carts
Food trucks may run into all sorts of trouble, but booty is apparently okay.
“It doesn’t violate city codes,” officials in Tampa, Florida, say in reference to the Stripper Mobile and its dishy dancers on wheels. Seat belts are clearly not required inside the Plexiglas-walled vehicle and as long as the gawkers don’t drive off the road, all is well with a mobile concept that rolls out after 10 p.m. and involves no actual nudity or graphic simulation of sexual acts.
[Image courtesy of Medusa's Lover.]
Delicious Democracy
Posted by Christiane Lauterbach | March 24th, 2010 | Filed under Carts
Paper Kogi Truck
In an opinion piece in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, two of the founders of the Atlanta Street Food Coalition express their view on the lack of street food in our fair city and comment on the need to “inject vitality and playfulness” into our city’s street life.
Hayley Richardson and Greg Smith write: “The argument is elegant in its simplicity: Changing the rules to allow food trucks to operate here would activate the myriad “dead spaces” throughout Atlanta, generate revenue for our city’s dwindling coffers and provide just the type of small business opportunity that our new mayor is promoting. The supply is here: Many food truck operators are fired up and ready to go, just waiting for the green light from the health department.”
This is the second time in a few weeks (John Kessler wrote eloquently on the subject in his Sunday column) that we have been blessed by the media in our own backyard.
Vote with your feet, Atlanta, and attend the Food Truck Advocacy Day picnic March 26 at the Sweet Auburn Curb Market.
If you haven’t signed our petition, now would be a good time!
Vendor Gallery: Westside Creamery
Posted by Christiane Lauterbach | March 22nd, 2010 | Filed under Carts
As a child, Maggie always wanted to visit an ice cream truck, but the colorful, singing Good Humor vans didn’t service the isolated farm she grew up on in rural south Georgia. Now, from her home on Atlanta’s Westside, she could “throw a rock and hit the local ice cream truck depot” but is less interested in prepackaged drumsticks and rocket pops than she once was.
Instead, she’s taken matters into her own hands, churning innovative, velvety ice creams and punchy sorbets for friends and family and, soon, for the rest of Atlanta and beyond. Maggie and partner Greg are “a civic-minded food-loving couple of local young professionals” who can’t wait to deliver their virtuous frozen delights to Atlanta’s streets and into its freezers. “World domination seems likely, ” they write, “with seasonal, inspired flavors like burnt orange caramel, roasted black grape with olive oil, and brown butter with–wait for it!–candied bacon.”
Variety, delicious as it is, is only part of what’s important to Maggie and Greg. Each small batch of their hand-crafted ice cream is made “with loving care using fruits, vegetables, and herbs plucked from local farms, eggs borrowed from urban chickens, and milk generously provided by Georgia dairy cows. All this, so that a dose of Westside Creamery’s luxurious frozen stuff–be it scooped into a cup, stuffed in a cone, or sandwiched between homemade cookies–satisfies not just your inner truck-chasing child, but your grown-up, earth-friendly locavore too.”
Look for Westside Creamery scooping at local farmer’s markets this summer and in stores near you soon.
The Sheik
Posted by Christiane Lauterbach | March 21st, 2010 | Filed under Carts
Jahan Ostad started cooking for himself after he put on the classic freshman twenty-plus pounds “from a strict diet of pizza, beer and more pizza” at Arizona State. “Immediately, he writes, “I began taking notes on how my father cooked his fantastic native version of Persian food.” Shortly thereafter, he began hosting dinner parties and wow his guests with emulations of his father’s cooking and of those from the southwestern restaurant, where he worked. As word of his cooking abilities and the size of his dinner parties grew, Ostad had to “find a way to make the same amount of food serve more people. And thus the fusion of Persian and Southwestern cuisine was forever forged inside the burrito.”
Sheik Burritos n Kabobs, a brick-and-mortar restaurant with the soul of a food truck, is upbeat, healthy, and tasty. The chic Sheik is still interested in rolling out a mobile unit as part of his three-tiered concept. “The concession trailer is the place where the dream becomes a reality. It is where the food and the fun engage and mingle with the common man on the street. It is what is missing in Atlanta and in many other untapped hungry markets. Within its 8×14-foot frame lies the prototype for success. We are not recreating the wheel here. Instead we are giving it new treads and tweaking what already has proven successful elsewhere.”
The Sheik’s groovy mission statement (“No longer will the kind people of the south struggle to find a decent meal at an indecent hour! No longer will fast-food be synonymous with unhealthy dog-food! No longer will gourmet food take hours of your time, max out your credit card, or require you to wear a shirt and tie!”) and fun graphics (check out his mural) are part of the fun of following the fusion burrito trail.
A tip from us: the burritos made on Persian bread with Persian sauces and Mexican peppers are almost better the next day, when the bread has deflated and all the ingredients have melded into one juicy unit…
