Starting early next month, there will now be a 500-foot rule (that’s about 1.5 city blocks) on vending by taco trucks, ice cream trucks and any other form of catering or vending in unincorporated areas of Sonoma County.

That’s thanks to a new rule passed last week by the county Board of Supervisors adds a new section to the Sonoma County Code.

The county’s own Summary Report states:

On March 19, 2009, at a meeting of the Joint City and County Roseland Subcommittee, during the public comment period, representatives of the Roseland School District and parents of children attending schools in the District, asked for assistance in regulating mobile vendors around school sites. A number of concerns related to the mobile vendors were expressed. They include:
- Sale of unhealthy and unregulated food products raising concerns about health and food safety;
- Potential sale of other products not legal for sale to minors (cigarettes, alcohol and other drugs, etc.);
- Unsafe conditions resulting from children darting in and out of cars and crossing streets to reach mobile
vendors; and
- Conduct of some of the mobile vendors raising concerns that school children might be subject to
inappropriate verbal comments and other forms of harassment.
The City of Santa Rosa has an ordinance restricting mobile vending. The County does not have such an
ordinance thus has no way to regulate mobile vendors around school sites in the unincorporated area.

Now I’m not really sure of any instances of “inappropriate verbal comments” given by any taquero to myself or anyone I’ve ever been with at any taco truck, but ok, fine.

This new ordinance is not unlike a measure earlier this summer that forced El Tonayense in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood to move to at least 1,500 feet from schools.

LA taco truck attorney Phil Greenwald also reminds me in an email:

Los Angeles has a 1,000 foot restriction regarding how close to a school a catering truck may be lawfully parked.

Since no one wants to jeopardize the health or safety of school children and since kids have been known to forget that crossing a street (when they are focused on getting to a food vehicle) is a dangerous thing, I personally am in favor of such a restriction. 500 feet is (on average) about 1.5 blocks. That seems reasonable to me, don’t you think so?

Meanwhile, Erin Glenn, CEO of the new Asociación de Loncheros, says that there may be other factors at play here:

This type of problem was allegedly one of the reasons the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors wanted there to be more stringent regulation of catering food trucks. In terms of operating near a school during school hours- this type of regulation actually makes sense, if a proper assessment of the situation i.e., traffic studies, etc. has occurred; hopefully, the Sonoma County regulation is motivated by the need for greater child safety, not by the need to “protect” brick and mortar establishments that may be near the schools in question. After all, let’s not forget that children need to cross the street to go into a convenience store as well.

About the food that may be sold from catering food trucks near schools: I would bet pound for pound, unless there are extraneous circumstances proving otherwise, the food one would get at a traditional taco truck is much healthier than typical fast food.

If taco trucks don’t comply, the ordinance also states the penalty:

Any person violating or causing the violation of the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. Except where other penalties are specified, each offense may be punished by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars ($100.00) nor more than five hundred dollars ($500.00), or by imprisonment in the county jail for a term not to exceed sixty (60) days, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

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According to a report one week ago in Nation’s Restaurant News, Baja Fresh has acquired the Calbi truck.

The new franchised truck made its debut this past weekend at the West Coast Franchise Expo in Los Angeles.

Astute readers will remember that there was some controversy with Calbi when it comes to their version of Korean tacos.

As NRN notes:

The first version of the truck was often seen as very similar in color design to the Kogi truck.

To dispel confusion, Lee said the Calbi truck has a new design and logo that he said would further distinguish the brand as something entirely different from Kogi — aside from the common theme of Korean-Mexican food.

Alice Shin, a spokeswoman for Kogi, declined to comment on Calbi’s franchising plans, except to note that members of the Kogi team did not help Calbi get its start, as had been reported by some food bloggers. “We’ve never had a working relationship with Calbi,” she said.

Shin also said Kogi officials currently have no plans to franchise.

However, despite while Shin says that they’ve never worked with Calbi, Kogi blogged that they had in fact worked with the folks behind Calbi, before it even was Calbi, to help get them set up. Initially, Kogi had a blog post (now deleted) saying that they’d helped out:

It was so successfuL, in fact, that the owner approached us for more joint business pLans — but it just was a littLe too much, too fast. PLus, we’re of the nomadic sort, so we’re a bit wary of tattooing ourseLves with a partnership after just 2 weeks of a joint project. So we parted ways… onLy to find out that about a month or so later, these same peopLe compLeteLy copied our “business modeL” from the inside out, even going so far as taking the recipes that Chef Roy had so graciousLy made for them and seLLing them on a newLy stickered truck, trying to mimic the spirit of our bLog posts, starting up their own Twitter feed and using our past coLLaboration to heLp themseLves in their new endeavors. ALso… parking at the exact locations and cross streets that we park at.

It is understandabLe that some of the team members — weLL yes, feeL duped — but more than that, they feeL emotionaLLy gutted. We invited these peopLe into our famiLy and they took advantage of us. Whether it’s to compete with us or it’s because they don’t have the confidence to work with what they know and what they’ve got, I don’t know.

All I do know is that some of the team members feeL reaLLy hurt and betrayed, for had they onLy asked — had they just said, “Yo! We want to start up our own truck too. Can you heLp us?”, we totaLLy wouLd have given them a heLping hand in that direction.

Plus, it’s also important to note that Baja Fresh has tried their line of of Korean burritos before — calling them first Kogi, and later Gogi Burritos.

So, is this now the real mainstreaming of Korean tacos?

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Coolhaus is probably the most unique of all of the LA nouveau food trucks that I’ve heard of. They sell architecturally-themed ice cream sandwiches with fun names like Frank Behry and Mintimalism. One of the truck’s two founders, Natasha Case, took some time out of her busy schedule to respond to a few questions.

1) So really, what’s Coolhaus all about? Are you guys just big architecture nerds or what? Are you architects yourselves?

Coolhaus is the first project under the Farchitecture (food + architecture) umbrella. Farchitecture actually has academic roots - while Natasha was at UCLA Architecture Grad School, she did an independent study class exploring the relationship between food and design. Coolhaus is the first attempt at marrying the two through the use of mobile food (becoming everyone’s local restaurant despite the urban sprawl of LA), edible wrappers (questioning the “building envelope” and practicing sustainable eating by consuming the wrapper rather than throwing it away), and introducing Architects/Architectural themes into the mainstream dialogue (by naming the sandwiches after them). And yes, we are big nerds. Natasha is an Architect and Freya is a Real Estate Developer.

2) What the heck does architecture have to do with ice cream sandwiches anyway?

I think the real question is, why the heck not?! Visually and literally, the ice cream sandwich has a similar structure to a house: there is a cookie slab, ice cream walls, and a cookie (shed) roof. Ice cream also has such universal appeal, and we really enjoy using ice cream to deconstruct flavors ie we are coming out with a “breakfast sandwich” which is made of brown butter bacon ice cream between waffle slabs. The ice cream sandwich seemed like a perfect vehicle/product for our first Farchitecture project.

3) How do you make them? What makes an ideal ice cream sandwich? What’s your background in food/cooking/eating? How’d you decide to start this?

Lots of experimentation and taste testing! We started out making all the cookies and ice cream “in-haus,” but because we’ve grown so fast, we have outsourced our recipes to companies that pride themselves in using all-natural ingredients (ie, Milk) who makes our ice cream.

I think an ideal ice cream sandwich is definitely made-to-order, freshly created on the spot and custom-built according to the customer’s desires (custom creations have a more architectural sensibility). The sandwiches have soft cookies that aren’t too thick or too sweet that it overpowers the ice cream taste; in between is a hunky scoop of ice cream that is soft enough to compress. The variety of flavors range from extra rich and creamy, to subtle red wine reduction flavor, to light and fruity sorbets…something for everyone!

4) Has Frank Gehry ever showed up to try Frank Behry? What would happen if he did?

Funny you should ask! We actually went to Gehry partners a few weeks back and Frank Gehry had a sandwich, but not the Frank Behry. He actually decided upon the Orange Julius Shulman (I think he may have a bit of a dairy problem).

I wasn’t there for the event, but I hear he cut the line and demanded to have his sandwich made very quickly! Oh, Mr. Behry.

5) What’s your favorite food/taco truck in LA?

Besides ours? Hmmm…I know Freya loves Taco Zone (I’ve never actually tried it! yikes!). We both love the Green Truck and the Border Grill Truck!

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I was contacted out of the blue by Akash Kapoor, of Curry Up Now, a new Indian taco truck based in Burlingame, Calif. (near SFO airport, in San Mateo County). I haven’t had the pleasure yet of trying its wares, but boy does it sound good!

1) What’s Curry Up Now all about? How’d you get started? What’s your background in food/cooking/eating?

Curry Up Now is essentially authentic Indian street food served on the street, where it belongs. We have mixed in some burritos and tacos in the menu to keep the spirit of a lonchera.

We originally thought about this 10 years ago but other business interests kept us from getting started. Seeing the success of Kogi and other ethnic trucks in SoCal, rekindled the idea and three to four months later, here we are. We have absolutely no background in the food business. We are foodies who have a passion for cooking and sharing.

2) What trucks have been your inspiration? Why start a truck, anyway? What are your favorite local trucks and why?

The success of Kogi and other trucks in LA have been a huge inspiration.

Since our focus is Indian street food, we wanted it to be just that, street food served from a truck.

Believe it or not, we haven’t eaten from a truck, local or anywhere else as yet. One of our associates tried the Kung Fu taco truck in the city and had good things to say about them. I plan on visiting them, Liba SF and El Tonayense soon.

3) What’s been the permit process like? I see you’re operating in San Mateo County, not San Francisco. Is that any easier/harder? Is that a deliberate decision?

The permit process has been brutal. The San Mateo County permit was a breeze but most Peninsula cities have been unwelcoming. This is due to unlicensed trucks all over El Camino Real from Daly City to Mountain View. However, we are hoping Burlingame, Foster City and Belmont will work things out with us. Burlingame has been most helpful and have allowed us to be out on a weekend to weekend basis as of now. We should have the Redwood City permit in a few days as well.

Our truck is in the shop this week to be readied for Santa Clara and San Francisco permits. We will be in the city and South Bay within 3 weeks. We wanted to start with the Peninsula and have a truck each in the city, South & East Bay.

4) What’s the best thing on your menu? How did you come up with these specific items? How does what you’re offering differ from traditional Indian street food?

I’d say the chicken kathi, deconstructed samosa with meat & chana and the doubles (from Trinidad & Tobago). The chicken kathi was inspired by frequent visits to Nizam’s, Kolkatta as a kid but we have changed it a little bit. A few people in the family prefer the samosa shell to the filling, thus was born the deconstructed samosa topped with meat keema. We remove the filling from the shell, top it off with chana, meat keema, onions, jalapenos, tamarind & mint/coriander chutney. Doubles is basically chana bhatura Trindiad & Tobago style. chana bhatura figures in the top five favorite Indian street foods and we had to have this on the truck even though its a pain to make on the truck. We have tried to keep this as trini as possible and have been pleasantly surprised with the response. Since the deconstructed samosa is a home grown recipe, I would rate it as the best thing on the menu and it tastes amazing to boot.

Our food is traditional and authentic Indian Street food, however, we have ‘taco truckized’ the menu with burritos and tacos. We will be featuring a curry from a different region of India each month as well.

5) Thums Up or Limca?

None, Pepsi 0 . We will have Limca & Thums Up on the truck along with mango lassi and mint lemonade.

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SFWeekly’s John Birdsall (see our interview with him from February 2009 here) blogs that last Friday, the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department modified its solicitation for proposals to include Golden Gate Park. Previously, the solicitation had included all other SF park, save the mother of all City parks.

Further, the deadline for applications to vend in said parks would be pushed back from October 1, 2009 to October 15, 2009.

However, the R&P Dept. has made clear that it’s only interested in one operator for each park. However, that operator could have multiple concession stands.

So, theoretically a large taco truck empire like El Tonayense could expand its empire in various points of the park, or as Birdsall points out, La Cocina could act as the operator while its vendor members could sell individually. Or maybe there will be some kind of Transfomers-esque culinary collective.

Birdsall also has a revealing interview with Happy Belly owner Dennis Lee, the last former legal food vendor in Golden Gate Park — who operated there from mid-2006 until June of this year.

“I would say just realize this is not a normal landlord,” Lee told SFoodie, referring to Rec and Park. “It’s like going into business with the DMV.” The chef described a litany of frustrations he experienced with the city department, from limiting the kind of signage the Happy Belly carts could display to reluctance to intervene when hostile groundskeepers turned the sprinklers on in what Lee called acts of harassment.

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[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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Amigos y Amigas,

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on a grant to produce a one-hour, bilingual radio documentary about the history of taco trucks in California. I’m pleased to announce that I’ve just submitted it to the California Council for the Humanities!

Here are the opening paragraphs of our grant application:

In California Spanglish, they’re known as loncheras. But in English, they’re known simply as taco trucks. Regardless of what you call them, most Californians simply call them delicious. Given their origins in Mexico, a dash of Americanizations and a kitchen on wheels, taco trucks are the perfect trans-cultural metaphor for California. They represent cheap, quality street food that has spread from Calexico to Yreka and beyond — California Taco Trucks will tell their fascinating story. California Taco Trucks is a sound-rich, narrative-led public radio documentary in both English and Spanish that will describe the rich history and newer incarnations of taco trucks.

With their humble beginnings as a blue-collar staple of journaleros statewide, taco trucks have since crossed socio-economic and cultural boundaries as more non-Latinos have discovered them. Further, as these trucks become more prevalent, cities like Turlock, Salinas, Stockton and even Los Angeles have battled with taqueros over how, when and where taco trucks can operate. Finally, many around the state have adapted the trucks to create new types of fusion cuisine served from a taco truck, such as Korean-Mexican (Kogi BBQ), Chinese-Mexican (Don Chow Tacos) and Japanese-Peruvian (Lomo Arigato).

Taco trucks represent a fascinating and unique lens through which to understand food culture, immigration, and demographics of late 20th century and early 21st century California. While taco trucks exist in other parts of the country, their presence originated in California. Raul Martinez is believed to have opened the first taco truck – converting an ice cream truck — outside of an East Los Angeles bar in 1974. He went from $70 in sales that first night to controlling a small empire of 10 King Taco restaurants and trucks around Southern California. By 1987, Martinez had earned $10 million in sales across his various properties. Nearly all taco truck owners don’t establish vast empires à la Martinez. Most are family-run businesses that work long hours and earn slim margins on a product that sells for around a single dollar.

Today, taco trucks exist in probably all of the 50 states, however, their largest concentration is in the Golden State. Los Angeles County alone has over 7,000 taco trucks, according to the newly founded Asociación de Loncheros – the rest of the state likely hosts thousands more. While taco trucks have existed for decades, the association itself was founded in 2009 after many loncheros found themselves afoul of new laws making it harder for them to operate in the City and County of Los Angeles. They have worked with attorneys in Los Angeles and Stockton, as well as UCLA law students to fight back and have struck down unconstitutional laws that restrict their trade.

Since the founding of Kogi BBQ, a Korean-Mexican taco truck in Los Angeles that famously uses Twitter to advertise and stay connected with its customers, dozens of nouveau food trucks have sprung up. They sell various treats including Indian cuisine, Mexican-Asian fusion, ice cream, shaved ice, burgers and various other combinations. However just as the classic trucks before them, this small community of newer trucks has to navigate an oft-confusing sea of municipal and county codes. These new trucks have received national media attention, and although they represent a small minority of the California taco truck community, they may just represent where it is headed both in California and on the national scale.

I’m supposed to be notified if we will receive the grant before December 2009.

If accepted, I will be working with Robert Breuer who will serve as photographer and associate producer.

We’re grateful to have received the support of the Asociación de Loncheros, who will act as the sponsoring organization. Our humanities advisors will be Prof. Abel Valenzuela (UCLA), Mark Vallianatos (Occidental), Prof. Roberto Alvarez (UCSD) and James Rojas (Latino Urban Forum). We will also be receiving culinary consultation from Bruce Aidells (Aidells Sausages) and Melanie Wong. We’ve also received letters of support from the Public Radio Exchange and NPR’s Latino USA.

Clark Boyd has also agreed to serve as script editor and Robin Wise will be our sound engineer.

Muchas gracias to Julie Caine for all her help. She successfully got her radio doc, “Squeezebox Stories” funded last year.

Keep your fingers crossed! Here’s to hoping we get it!

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After months of deliberation, earlier this week, the city of Lathrop (population ~17,000, about 70 miles east of San Francisco in San Joaquin County) passed a new city ordinance regulating mobile vendors (read: taco trucks).

The new laws (I’m still trying to get a copy of the actual language of the law) apparently forbids trucks from parking on dirt roads, from having “no visible dents from a distance of 5 feet,” and requiring “that operators should have to undergo fingerprinting and criminal background checks.”

It also reduces the fees from $225 per cart to $21 that are currently doing business in the city, increases how long one vendor can be in a single location from 10 to 30 minutes, and restricts vendors from “setting up within 300 feet of any intersection and within 500 feet of other vendors or school areas. They will also be required to provide bathrooms for their employees and clean up all trash,” according to the Sun Post.

The measure passed the city council 3-1, with one member absent.

Councilwoman Martha Salcedo argued that the new rules are unfair and that there was a high potential for legal action against the city. At a previous council meeting, Salcedo asked why taco trucks were being targeted.

“Why just the vendors?” she asked. “In my opinion, it seems the vendors are being picked at. It should be all businesses. It’s all about being fair.”

Given the recent legal battles in Salinas and Los Angeles, she’s probably not wrong.

[Photo credit: Denise Ellen Rizzo/Sun Post]

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Just around the time that twittering taco trucks took off, Los Angeles artist Sean Finocchio started doing this series of taco trucks. From his website you can get one for $25 or a pair for $40. I’m *this* close to forking over the money to get a couple. I think they’d look great in my kitchen or bathroom. I hit him up for a query-laden quintet.

1) How did you come up with the idea to do taco truck prints?

I spend a lot of time in my car commuting to and from work. I take a camera with me daily to take pictures. Taco trucks kept showing up and I decided to do a series of them. I had previously done a series of mobile homes. The taco truck series was completed back in the fall of 2008. Most of my artwork is of everyday life in and around Los Angeles. Markets, Liquor stores, alleys, apartment buildings, etc.

2) How are these trucks selected? Where are they located? Are they your favorites?

All of my images are completely random. They are just trucks seen around town. Some were found downtown, Hawthorne, Mar Vista, Venice, Hollywood, etc. Taco Trucks are everywhere in LA. I’ve also changed the names on all of the trucks. I have taken some creative liberties while creating these images. My artwork celebrates the culture of the taco trucks — not necessarily a specific truck.

Full disclosure on the taco truck series — I’ve changed the names on all of the trucks. All the names are fictitious. I didn’t want to exploit these trucks because I realize these are family run trucks (usually) and I did not get their permission when taking the pictures. I didn’t want to get in a legal mess. So — you wont find these exact trucks around town. They do exist, but I don’t remember exactly where they are located. And finally, the red truck and the yellow truck were not actually taco trucks but a fire and rescue truck and a delivery truck. I was looking to complete a set of trucks and needed to find a few more — most of the trucks I came across are all the same shape and I wanted to have some different looking ones.

I’m telling you all of this because your site appears to celebrate specific trucks and I don’t want people to ask you or me what part of town “La Mexicanita” is at on Tuesdays. I’m not trying to be accurate- I’m an artist. My artwork really is just to celebrate the beauty of the taco trucks and the culture — not any truck specifically.

3) How many of them have you sold? Have you ever given/sold to these (or other?) taco trucks?

Taco trucks are pretty popular right now. It has been a happy accident. I’ve sold quite a few of these locally and nationally. People tell me they like them because of their love for LA and their love of taco trucks. I haven’t approached any of theses taco trucks with my artwork. If they were interested in one of my print I would gladly give them one or trade for some tacos.

4) What’s most visually appealing about taco trucks for you?

I’m attracted to the different shapes and colors of the trucks and the artwork on the sides of the trucks. It is a completely random process. I usually spot a cool truck and take a picture from the other side of the road and keep going. Unfortunately I haven’t eaten at any of these trucks.

5) Are you going to do another round, given the new twittering generation of trucks?

I might do a different series in the future. I take pictures daily and I have a bunch of new images that I have taken in the last few months.

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Earlier this summer, a former Wolfgang Puck chef, Antonio Medina, started The Gastrobus, a fun new mobile restaurant roaming the streets of Los Angeles. I hit up Medina for the standard fiver.

1) Gastrobus? Is it really a bus or a truck? How’d you get that going? Why a bus? How’d you convert it?

The Gastrobus is a truck, it just took a paint job and a name to turn it into a school bus. The idea came from the need to work together as a family. The name is a play on words ‘gastro pub’, which is the type of restaurant we wanted. School busses are also cool looking and familiar to everybody.

2) Tell me about yourself. What’s your cooking/food/eating background? What’s the biggest difference cooking in a truck/bus rather than restaurant kitchen?

I have been cooking professionally for the past 7 years, during which I was the Executive Chef for Wolfgang Puck at the Pacific Design Center, worked for catering companies in Hollywood and at a couple of restaurants in the city. The food at the Bus is my take on American gastro pub fare, accentuated by my Latin roots.
Kitchens are kitchens, whether it’s a five star restaurant, a catering company, a pizza joint in the Caribbean or a Bus. I just do my best with I have.

3) Man, root beer floats! I love it! Are those difficult to concoct on a truck? Is there room for a freezer? What kind of ice cream/root beer are you using?

Floats are an American summer classic. We tasted many root beers and ice creams (big brands and microbrews) and nothing beats A&W with homemade vanilla ice cream. There’s no freezer in this truck, but we know how to keep things cool at The Gastrobus.

4) How’d you pick your menu items? What’s the difference between the regular menu items and the Los Feliz Farmer’s Market menu items? What are the specials and how do we find out about them?

The menu looks really simple, but all the items have been thought thru, from the bread to the garnishes, each component adds some flavor/texture to them. “Organic Sundays” is our new project at Farmers Markets, and is completely improvised each time. Sunday mornings we shop at the market and whip up small plates using the best local produce that the farmers bring. It is a very interesting approach to the “market-driven” concept that some restaurants have. Check out the website for menus, bus stops and our latest creations at the Farmers Market. Or follow us on twitter (@thegastrobus).

5) What are your favorite food/taco trucks in LA?
Coolhaus! They have the best sweets on the road.

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