New York Street Food

Last year I was having lunch with Stan Tankursley, owner of the Eat Here Now Now Eat Here food cart that was a Vendy Award Rookie Finalist in 2011. Stan told me about an idea he had for a new food truck.

Stan told me he wanted to be more mobile than a food cart, but didn’t want to deal with getting investors for a food truck, which can easily run to $100K.

His idea was  to get a 3-wheeled tuk tuk and serve breakfast tacos, the dish he was known for, and doesn’t require much space to make.

A Dutch company had the same idea.

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(credit: NYSF)

Sometimes we’re ahead of the curve, as in the case of Home By The Range.

We first ran across them at the All About Downtown Festival in Jersey City last year, where NYSF was a sponsor.  Delicious grass-fed beef sandwiches with ultra-fresh ingredients and salads.

We gave them a NYSF First Look last September, and they have been in our Mobile Munchies posts and our directory ever since.

The Newark Star-Ledger recently visited Home By The Range, and they were as impressed as we were last year.

Click here to read the full Star-Ledger article on NJ.com, and here to follow HBTR on twitter or here for our Mobile Munchies list.

Congratulations Will.  Good to see you getting some recognition from someone other than NYSF.

(credit: NYSF)

(credit: NYSF)

A lot of people think food trucks are a glamorous and lucrative business, but insiders know better.  While it can serve as a gateway to opening a restaurant, the hours are long, weather is always a factor, permits and local laws can be labyrinthine (is that a word?), and profit margins are slim.

The Toronto Standard recently ran an interesting article entitled “Food Truck: Good Business or Passing Fad?”  We are certain food trucks are not a passing fad, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good business.

Click here to read the full article.

(credit: Phil Corso)

From the  (Queens) Times Ledger:  City Councilman Mark Weprin (D-Oakland Gardens) has zoned in on what he called a recent phenomenon, urging the Council’s Consumer Affairs Committee to see what’s cooking on the streets of eastern Queens.

The appearance of food carts along Bell Boulevard, Hillside and Springfield avenues as well as Union Turnpike has left Weprin asking the city to investigate and potentially regulate concerns, including health and safety issues, unfair competition (really?) and unsightliness.

The councilman said the city would hold hearings later this spring to discuss these issues with local vendors and the community to resolve how to regulate food vendors.

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(credit: Community Newspaper Group / Will Bredderman)

A scrape over a Bay Ridge sidewalk escalated into an all-out war last week, when a controversial halal cart mowed down a Fifth Avenue bar owner during a fight over a coveted corner spot, witnesses claim.

Sammy Kassen, manager of the Middle Eastern Halal Cart (holding a list of signatures from customers supporting his food cart), was trying to reclaim his food wagon’s location at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 86th Street on March 24, a spot taken away from him after someone quietly placed two benches atop his normal hangout under the cover of darkness, when several merchants, including Lone Star Bar owner Tony Gentile — a longtime critic of Kassen’s cart — created a human barricade, preventing him from backing in.

Kassen moved aside several newspaper boxes — a Bay Ridge Courier bin among them — and was maneuvering into the spot he made for himself when he reportedly backed into Gentile.

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