It seems as if the ramp up in police pressure on the food trucks of Midtown has claimed its first permanent victim. The Treats Truck sent out this unbelievably sad email to their followers this morning:

To my dear customers,

We will not be midtown for the time being. The police have let us know that they no longer want food trucks in the midtown area. Two of our spots dear to our hearts (and our first two regular spots since the early days) have been 45th & 6th Ave and 38th & 5th Ave. We have so many wonderful regulars, and you all have made serving you such a pleasure. We are so sad to have to take our truck elsewhere. We hope to be able to return someday. For now, we cannot. We wish we could. You have all made the past four years very special. You can always order for delivery for your offices or come by our new spots. You can call to find out where we are each day.

Thank you for all our years midtown. We hope to be back when it is allowed. We’ll miss you very much. I’ll miss you very much, and thank you for making my Treats Truck dream come true.

all my best and thanks,
Kim Ima (the Treats Truck lady)

This is especially sad because the Treats Truck was the very first “gourmet” food truck that I remember writing about on Midtown Lunch. And Kim did it the right way, making friends with the surrounding food carts, local businesses and beat cops, and building up her two Midtown spots over the course of months and years. And as much as we love the new trucks that have hit the scene over the past year, it’s not right that Kim should have to lose what she has spent years building up because of others. We’ve been predicting this for years but it looks like it is finally coming to a head. The current way of doing things is unsustainable.

In the meantime, while we hope for a solution that will allow the Treats Truck to come back to Midtown, they will still be doing deliveries in the area. So if you can manage to get a bunch of friends or co-workers to come together on a big order, you can get your Treats Truck on in Midtown.

It’s St. Patrick’s Day! Timing for the eating o’ the green treats. If you’re courageous enough to brave the emerald clad revelers, there are some St. Patty’s Day treats awaiting you at Treats Truck including: cupcakes, crispy treats, and four leaf clover sugar cookies. And Robicellis is now delivering to Joe the Art of Coffee in Grand Central on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so Joe should have a selection of their holiday cupcakes: Irish Soda Bread (with a clotted cream buttercream & Drambuie soaked raisins), Irish Coffee (Bailey’s-espresso cake & buttercream, ganache, crushed white chocolate) and the Car Bomb (Chocolate Guinness stout cake, Bailey’s buttercream, Jameson whiskey ganache). Lily O’Brien’s will be getting a delivery of these flavors tomorrow for those of you still celebrating on Friday (or needing something to get over your hangover).

Also Shake Shack is serving up Mint Chocolate Chip Custard, and if you tell your server “Get Lucky” at The Counter in Times Square they’ll give you a green beer or green shake for just $3. “Like” The Counter on Facebook and show it to them (on your phone or a printout) they’ll give you the shake for free.

For those of you who forgot that today is Valentine’s Day, you can still save your you know what with some treats for your lady. Lily O’Brien’s (on 40th btw. 5+6th) will be getting their Monday delivery of Robicelli’s with special Valentine’s flavors:

• The L’Amour: Chocolate Chambord cake, Chambord & raspberry buttercream, chocolate shavings, wildberry drizzle
• Strawberry Champagne: Champagne cake, strawberry champagne buttercream, strawberry reduction, edible gold dust
• Dark Chocolate Dulce: Dark chocolate cake, dulce de leche buttercream, dark chocolate drizzle, Maldon flake sea salt (seen above)
• The Eve: Walnut cake, pomegranate cheesecake buttercream, roasted walnuts glazed in pomegranate molasses.

Additionally Treats Truck will be making a special Monday appearance in midtown on 45th & 6th Av from 12:30-3pm with heart shaped sugar cookies, chocolate heart cookies and raspberry linzer heart cookies. Keep track of the Treats Truck’s location on the ML Twitter Tracker or via Twitter.

Lily O’Brien’s (40th btw 5+6th), 212-575-0631

With cold and dreary weather in the forecast for the near future, it’s always nice to have a little treat to look forward to. The other day as I was walking by the Treats Truck, I took a moment to peep in the case. Those of you who read our blog know that Blondie and I have tried about 97% of the menu at the Treats Truck. But I hadn’t tried their lemon squares, until now.

Apparently the lemon squares ($2.50) have been on hiatus for a while. Kim loves to make the traditional bars, but with a large menu she has a lot of things to bake and sometimes specials can fall out of the rotation. The bar portion is like a buttery and tender shortbread and the filling is just sweet enough with a hint of tart. So good. I hope these stay in the semi-regular location. We all need a little sunshine in the winter.

The Treats Truck will be on 45th and 6th from 12:30 to 3:30 today and I’ve heard from Kim that she’ll have lemon squares on board (and next week, too!) Keep tabs on The Treats Truck on Twitter or the ML Twitter Tracker.

The gingerbread men ($1.25) were your standard palm sized (I swear I don’t have man hands, it’s the gloves, the gloves, I tell you!) and had a nice hint of ginger, cinnamon and cloves. Exclusively chewy cookie fans should be warned that this one was thin and crispy. They also had their sugar cookies done up with some Christmas cheer on board as well. When I ordered my cookie, I put in a special plea for Kim to consider making actual iced gingerbread. Her pumpkin cake and carrot cake are two of my all time favorites on the menu. Kim said that she does love gingerbread herself. Maybe if more people put in a request we’ll see it on the specials menu in the New Year…who’s with me?

Also on the gingerbread front, Dunkin Donuts is offering gingerbread everything from lattes, to muffins, to cookies to donuts. I tried the gingerbread donut the other day and found it to be surprisingly tasty. The gingerbread flavor is subtle, so it tastes a bit more like a spiced version of an old fashioned cake donut. Flavorwise, it actually seemed more akin to something that you’d find in your farmer’s market rather than your local DD. If you’re a huge gingerbread fan it’s nearly as spiced or in your face ginger as the one that the Doughnut Plant makes around this time of year which hopefully will be making an appearance at some of midtown’s Doughnut Plant purveyors. But at around $1, it’s a good bit cheaper, so if you’re find with a subtly flavored doughnut, this makes for a pleasant treat with coffee.

The Treats Truck will be on 45th and 6th until 3:30pm today (and you can follow them on Twitter or the ML Twitter Tracker after that.)