San Diego is home to a handful of food trucks including the Miho Gastrotruck, Joe’s on the Nose, Tabe BBQ and the Cohn Restaurant Group’s Chop Soo-ey. In the past few years, a new wave of food trucks has emerged, making food trucks the latest and hippest niche in the foodie world. These trucks are not the “roach coaches” of days of yore. These are sophisticated gourmet eateries where the food happens to be made in a kitchen that operates inside a truck. Food trucks today stand behind impressive menus with not so average menus, sometimes focusing on a particular cuisine such as Greek or BBQ, or fusion fare such as Korean-Mexican, or a dedication to one entire food category, such as shrimp, or the promise of farm to market organic ingredients.
The food truck phenomenon began in Los Angeles, and is still growing with 300+ trucks and has spread quickly to New York, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Washington DC, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle, among others. New York City has a 2+ year waiting list for food truck permits. A recent Food Network reality show, hosted by Tyler Florence, followed 8 food trucks across the US, where the trucks began their challenge in San Diego.
“The food truck is an impressive product of leaner economic times,” MFTVA’s Alissa Walters said. “Well-educated and experienced chefs discovered the largely untapped opportunity of the mobile food vending world, with startup costs that can come at a fraction of the bricks and mortars model. It makes sense that food trucks are out and about now because they are a natural outcrop of a socially connected world where truck fans can follow their favorite trucks on Twitter to learn the truck’s stop that day or when a certain dish has sold out.”
Fans are known to form block-long lines once the latest spot of a celebrated truck is revealed.
The San Diego Food Truck Festival 2011 takes place on Saturday, May 7 at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets to the event are $15 adults, $8 children. Click here to purchase tickets in advance.
Read my article on San Diego’s Gourmet Food Trucks right here.