[Photo: Steve Lyon]

This term exactly encompasses what I’m afraid of in this new generation of food trucks popping up around the country. I want to believe that the market is big enough for all type of taco trucks, food carts, and everyone in between.

In California, the only example that I’ve seen so far was the recent Mid-Wilshire spat — but in New York things are a bit more heated between established and nouveau street food.

Still, this piece does give me pause:

In a city accustomed to gentrification, perhaps this new phenomenon could be described as “vendrification,” with more expensive, higher-tech carts and trucks sweeping in and shaking up the culinary terrain of the streets. Predictably, this shift has led to some tensions between the “traditional” vendors and the newer-style sellers, who often use heavily decorated trucks, rotating seasonal offerings, and regular Twitter tweets advertising their current whereabouts to draw in customers. For the kebab and hot dog vendors, who often stay in the same city-assigned location day after day, it becomes a question of market infringement. In late June, an exchange over turf outside the Metropolitan Museum between the fancy food truck Street Sweets and a few other vendors grew so heated that police were called to the scene. And the Schnitzel & Things truck has endured confrontations both with halal vendors and a Mister Softee truck.

[via The Food Section]

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