In the Boston Globe, Edward L. Glaeser, a professor of economics at Harvard University and director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, asks himself, “Why do food trucks matter?” and answers his own question:

“Cities work economic magic and entertain their citizens by connecting smart people, helping them to learn from one another and to innovate….Food trucks are a natural part of the innovative culinary process…Preserving the monopoly power of local eateries is a terrible reason to restrict food trucks.”

Subsitute the word “Atlanta” for the word “Boston, and you have it in a nutshell:

“As in many other areas, a one-stop permitting process that aims at providing speedy approval seems like a step forward. While I admire the Food Truck Challenge in City Hall Plaza to bring food trucks to scale, we should give up on micro-managing the location of every food truck. Instead, public spaces should be rented to food trucks, so the space will go to the truck that values it most. Food trucks can improve Boston’s streets and Boston’s palates ­ they just need to be free to do so.”

(photo of Mayor Thomas Menino from the Boston Globe)

Please come out tonight in support of the Sweet Auburn Curb Market’s new extended hours (till 8 p.m.) on Thursdays. Most of the restaurants will be open for business, including the newest and definitely fabulous Bell Street Burritos, which started as a delivery business and a way for a young professor of theology to feed his family. If you are still pining for Tortillas on Ponce, Matt’s burritos are exact replicas of the original, sauce and all.

Also…the first ever evening Urban Picnic at the market sponsored by the Atlanta Street Food Coalition will start promptly at 5 p.m. and many of your favorite food trucks will be on the curb!

Come out to support the market so it can keep moving in the right direction….

Yesterday, Councilman Kwanza Hall of District 2 invited the Atlanta Street Food Coalition to City Hall to spark an interest with the other members on the City Council and honor pioneers such as the Yumbii truck, the King of Pops, and other attendees.

Proclamations were read, popsicles were shared, and sincere thanks went to the Councilman, who briefly alluded to the current statute of street food (“not quite legal at the moment”) and has vowed to introduce new legislation to help vendors over the hurdles.

Look at all the happy faces of the honorees!

How do you pick a good employee to work in your food truck?

The owner of Rickshaw Dumpling Bar in Manhattan recently told Nation’s Restaurant News that not only do his employees have to be “able to steam fresh dumplings, prep all the fresh sides like the green salads and sesame noodle salad, and be able to drive in New York City,” but they also must know how to “handle hot weather days, cold weather days and being harassed by other vendors. Basically, they set up the entire store in the morning and tear it down at night. They also have to be good at not getting tickets. They have to feel very confident in troubleshooting when the truck goes down because so many things can go wrong that we don’t have checklists like we do in the restaurant. Instead, we just tell them to leave the truck how they’d like to pick it up.”

How do you select a lucrative location?

In a three-part article entitled “Behind the scenes with an L.A. Food Truck,” posted on Serious Eats, the owner of the Manila Machine reveals that it is sometimes necessary to send a “staging car” to hold a good spot and that revealing your secrets on Twitter may put you at a disadvantage. “Are there other restaurants in the area? Can you assume that the people in this area will want try your food for the first time? Are there any cops around that may shoo you away even though you are following the letter of the law? Are there other food trucks in the area that may not welcome your presence?” vendors must ask themselves.

Last week in New York city, ice cream trucks got into a brawl over territorial rights to a few feet on the street.

A video of the clash between a Mister Softee truck and a competitor with a similar name was linked on the blog The Consumerist, proving that there is nothing soft about peddlers of icy treats!

Ugly words were exchanged, followed by punches and a call for the police. The incident took place at the corner of Broadway and W. 60th St., near Lincoln Center. Content may not be suitable for tender ears…

The City of Atlanta Police Department revokes the vending permit it just granted to the Yumbii truck to operate on the public right of way (typically at 5th and Spring in Tech Square), claiming that such permit was issued in error!

The owner and his supportive family are scrambling to find a comparable (highly visible) spot on private property and resume a business granted full approval by the Fulton County Health Department.

Unincorporated DeKalb County, meanwhile, prohibits vending entirely, and many locations (including the Emory campus and many large buildings) are tied to preexisting food service contracts and can’t align themselves with the demands of an enthusiastic public.

What is it going to take, Atlanta? Don’t you know that the street food movement is growing by leaps and bounds as seen on the Food Network’s new show the Great Food Truck Race.

It’s not closed.  The health inspector showed up on Monday and shut them down for like 15 minutes (or something like that), it wasn’t long at all.  They are open and operating without a problem!

If you fly Air Tran in August, reach into the pocket in front of you and grab a print copy of this article on Atlanta’s street food written by Stephanie Davis Smith.

Reader Boyd Baker sent us a tip that the Orleagian Snowball truck at the corner of Ponce and Moreland may be closed. Here’s what he said:

I was at the Snowball truck at Ponce & Moreland this afternoon when a City official told them they had to close until they had a health certificate. They had a license but the poor kid running the thing knew nothing else. I thought I overheard the man say it’d be a $5k fine if they opened without a health cert. When I talked to the kid, all he could say was, “This truck has been open 3 years.”

Let us know if it’s open or not.

[Photo courtesy of their Flickr stream.]

Jennifer and John Maley, who live in Ansley Park and run the Atlanta food blog Food We’ve Eaten, linked us last week in a blog post on street food. John writes,

Personally, I think there’s something really appealing to being able to walk down the street and pick up a hot dog, or a burro pollo, and enjoy it al fresco. There’s none of the experiential overhead of a restaurant to deal with  (waiters, counters, decor, elevator music, etc.). It’s just about the food. Plus, when everyone is forced to improvise seating, you end up a little more connected to the people around you, even if you don’t necessarily talk to them.

We agree!