Papa Perrone Saves Eddie’s Pizza From the Cops… Today
An interesting thing happened on 55th street today that other food truck vendors would be wise to pay attention to. Because of all the UN madness on the east side, Eddie’s Pizza Truck was forced to find a new spot this morning for their Thursday service. Where did they choose? 55th btw. Park+Mad… right next to the Papa Perrone truck, who also sells pizza. Naturally, Papa Perrone wasn’t too happy about it, not just because they both sell pizza but because he’s worked hard over the past few years to cultivate a relationship with the building on that block- who in turn have agreed not to complain to the cops, provided that the block doesn’t turn into a food truck parking lot. So when Eddie’s showed up this morning, Jon Paul (aka “Papa Perrone”) explained the situation, hoping that they would find an alternate spot. Obviously nobody wants to see a repeat of what happened on 48th Street a few weeks ago.
Eddie’s response? Kill them with kindness…
Hmmm. A true call for brotherhood? Or a semi-disingenuous way to make up for not following the unwritten street vendor code? We’ll let you decide! Thankfully both vendors have managed to have a incident free day, but according to Papa Perrone the manager of the building did complain about all the Eddie’s pizza boxes people were throwing in the building’s garbage cans- and threatened to call the police. Thankfully, once Papa Perrone explained that they would both be kicked out by the cops and the the block would probably be permanently off limits to food trucks, the building manager held back for Papa Perrone’s sake. For today, at least.
In other words, hopefully this was just a one day thing caused by the U.N. and other trucks won’t be following Eddie’s lead to 55th street. If they do, we’ll probably end up losing another food truck block to the cops.
Posted by Zach Brooks at 2:10 pm, September 23rd, 2010 under Eddie's Pizza Truck, Papa Perrone's, Street Vendor Issues.
9 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
9 Comments
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My opinion: Making negative public statements about your competition is classless and usually makes you look bad. Perrone comes off as petty to those who don’t follow this stuff very closely (hopefully that’s most of the sane world).
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I think free market dictates that eddies has every right to be there… I also think it’s kind of dick for a new pizza truck to say hey lets park right next to a staple pizza truck… Especially knowing how much heat cops can bring to that kind of situation and totally ruin it for both trucks and customers of both trucks.
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Why would they pick a block with another truck serving the same thing? That’s just stupid, it sucks you lost your spot, but suck it up and get on with it. Don’t ruin someone else’s spot.
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There have been two pizza places on the same block in every hood in NY since JC wore short pants. Give me a break. The truck drama is just too much these days.
Btw, did you see on twitter that the Softee Meats Truck is teaming up with Big Gay Dinges truck to sell something nobody ever wanted? Yea, it’s going to take a long time, taste pre-made and cost more than it should. Can’t wait.
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Papa Perrone gave me a speech about “street etiquette.” He explained that the guy who owns Eddie’s pizza truck is a young guy with ‘balls but no respect.” Papa Perrone told me although he usually doesn’t work Mondays he is now going to make it his mission to follow Eddie’s truck every Monday and blow up all his spots. He may have been nice on twitter but he was singing another tune on 55th today. PIZZA WAR!
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I am writing with inside information on the situation. The Eddies truck parked on 55th before Papa Perrone showed up, without any knowledge of it being a spot belonging to anyone. They would not have set up shop there otherwise, if only because there’s no reason to compete with a similar product. It was a difficult day for parking as everyone knows. Perrone went over to the Eddies truck and made verbal threats, trying to egg on the employees who were doing nothing more than their job, and threatened to call the police. Later, an Eddies employee went over to make peace and Perrone relented, admitting he was at fault for threatening them. Then he lashes out on twitter after Eddies basically gave him free advertising.
I know many of the Eddies employees. It’s a cutthroat world out there in the food truck business but no one on that truck wants trouble, or even friction. There are 8 million people in the city, plenty for everyone. -
I say bullshit they didnt know the spot belonged to anyone.
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there is plenty of business in midtown with food trucks stating war, this is so stupid. just get alone and take care of the streets customers. i have been to both trucks and both have amazing employees, it was probably jus a tough day, we all have them…move on and grow up
PIZZA FIGHT!!!
But seriously, work things out if possible or it’s just another street without any lunch trucks.