I. NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & MENTAL HYGIENE
http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-vendys-at-10-1410486238
1. The Vendys at 10
Jackie Bischof, Wall Street Journal
September 11, 2014
A decade ago, when the Street Vendor Project staged its first culinary competition inside an East Village garage, food carts—to many New Yorkers—meant a cup of Joe or
a hot dog.
Today, the Vendy Awards are an annual event that have been adopted by three other cities—Philadelphia, New Orleans and Los Angeles—and the contestants here are serving
up everything from dosas and carne asada tacos to eggplant sandwiches and empanadas to vegan doughnuts and French crepes.
"That first year we had to convince vendors to come," said Sean Basinski, who sold burritos from a food cart before going to law school and founding the Street Vendor
Project in 2001. "Nowadays every vendor knows about the event."
As the competition has grown—it is now held on Governors Island and this year's event on Saturday marks its 10th anniversary—so has food truck culture in New York City.
The Street Vendor Project has seen its membership rise to more than 1,800 individual food truck, cart and table vendors, up from 200 in 2005.
During the week, the streets of Midtown are lined with carts and trucks catering to extravagant foodie tastes, and on weekends, dozens of vendors peddle high-end street
eats at food fairs and markets, such as Brooklyn's popular Smorgasburg.
But entering the business isn't easy for most.
After obtaining the right paperwork to serve food from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, street vendors can apply for restricted area permits to operate in
a park or on private property, such as a parking lot, or apply to sell food at a street fair or market.
For carts and trucks that want to sell on public property, breaking in is even trickier. New York City caps the number of mobile food unit permits for selling food on
city streets at 5,100 and, in recent years, closed its waiting list for some permits, according to the Department of Health, which processes the permits and inspects carts and trucks.
Because vendors face lengthy waits for a permit, some sell their food without one, which can lead to legal problems, such as arrest, fines and confiscation of property;
others enter into agreements with existing permit holders, a strategy that can be expensive and unsafe, Mr. Basinski said.
The Street Vendor Project is lobbying the City Council to revisit its permitting rules and lift the cap on permits.
"It's an absolute bar for most people that keeps people from opening small businesses," he said.
The Vendy Awards were dreamed up during a brainstorming session for fundraisers the morning after the Grammy Awards, which provided the inspiration for the name.
Mr. Basinski recalls it was just as cooking-centered entertainment, such as Food Network's "Iron Chef America," was taking off.
"Honestly, it didn't take a genius to put together the idea to have a street food competition," he said. "We instantly knew we had something there."
Jesse Vendley broached the idea of bringing his family's carne asada cookouts to city streets with one of his brothers while they were eating at the first Vendy Awards.
Today, the Vendleys own the popular Mexican chain Calexico.
The brother thought it was a "crazy idea," said Mr. Vendley, especially because it involved his two brothers moving from California.
"We weren't professional chefs, we're self-taught…cooking family recipes," Mr. Vendley said. But street carts proved "a great way to test and develop products and see
if there's an appetite for them—literally."
Since starting out in 2006, Calexico has grown from one cart manned by the brothers to three carts and four restaurants in New York City, with two set to open in Philadelphia
soon.
Mr. Vendley attributes the boom in food vendors to the popularity of food television shows, the exposure that food purveyors have gotten online and the growth of online
information about how to open a truck or cart.
And while a truck or cart may not make a ton of money, he said, they are great advertising vehicles.
"If we had just opened a little taqueria somewhere, we wouldn't be nearly as well known, I don't think," said Mr. Vendley, adding a street cart is "like a billboard that
also has like a tasting component."
Snowday is trying to blend French Canadian gourmet food with a social mission; the new food truck will compete in the "Rookie of the Year" category.
Operated by the nonprofit group Drive Change, the business has a training program for youths coming home from prison, teaching them skills such as food preparation, social
media, marketing and hospitality, and then employs them to work on the truck for a time.
Launched earlier this year with a focus on serving food from local farms, founder Jordyn Lexton said she selected French Canadian fare because she knew it would get exposure.
"There's this real camaraderie around what our niche is," she said of the truck's employees.
One day last week, Jacques Roy and two colleagues were on a break from work when they headed over to Snowday, parked in an empty lot in the Brooklyn Navy Yards .
With options that included maple grilled cheese sandwiches, quinoa salad with carrots and beets, and maple beer-battered onion rings, they were pleasantly surprised, said
Mr. Roy, at the "gourmet twist on comfort food."
"This is a lovely change of pace," Mr. Roy said. "Usually lunch at work is a very utilitarian endeavor."
Arlene Spark, EdD, RD, FADA, FACN
Professor
MPH and DPH Advisor
CUNY School of Public Health
Hunter College and The CUNY Graduate Center
2180 Third Avenue (room 609)
New York, NY 10035
The MPH in Public Health Nutrition
at Hunter
The DPH at
the Graduate Center NB: nutrition specialization
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