It’s Been a “Quiet” Week For Midtown Food Trucks


We miss you Jamaican Dutchy Cart

This has been a relatively quiet week in Midtown for food carts. We haven’t heard too much commotion because most of them have chosen to set up elsewhere. The Financial District has seen Go Burger, Schnitzel & Things, Cevap Truck and Desi Truck all set up shop on the days they used to come to Midtown. Most of the trucks who have braved the pressure up here have stuck to the 30’s and the far east or west. It seems Comme Ci, Comme Ca has indeed found a non-metered spot on 36th and Broadway and has operated without too much trouble both there and on 55th and Lexington this week.

Sadly, Korilla BBQ has not had the same luck. They were booted from their new Garment District spot yesterday (on Broadway between 35th and 36th) and had some trouble at a dinner spot near Penn Station Wednesday evening when they were told they were not allowed to operate before 7pm.

By now you probably have already seen DNAInfo’s interesting article about trucks switching over to carts, a trend we could be seeing more of in the coming months. As we previously mentioned, a few trucks already have carts they could use if ticketing continues to be overwhelming. Uncle Gussy’s could pull their old cart out of storage, although Nick doesn’t want to have to resort to that because it is much more difficult to operate. Wafels & Dinges and Eddie’s Pizza are both set with at least one cart on the street. And Kelvin Natural Slush will be launching a cart in the West Village later this summer. Since the truck never made it to Midtown too often, I wouldn’t expect the cart to either.

This has been pretty awful timing for a few vendors who went the other way: cart to truck. Poor Jamaican Dutchy has been missing in action since last week when cops forced them to move to the Flatiron District. The old cart is still alive and well, but is now owned by O’Neil’s family member Jillian who has re-named it R. Retha’s and has gained a following downtown. (In other words, the cart is likely never coming back to 51st.) And I’m not sure this was the time for Korilla to launch their second and third truck back to back.

I wonder how many other entrepreneurs who had planned on starting a food truck this summer have had second thoughts. Before this nonsense began a few months ago, remember how many new trucks we saw launch in a single week? The only good that could come from this is maybe it will help curb the over-saturation of food trucks because some were bound to serve less than mediocre food. But that doesn’t change the fact that I miss Taim, Treats Truck, and all the others. One thing we can do to show our support is to “like” this Facebook page or sign this petition being circulated by Big D’s Grub Truck. And keep checking the ML Twitter Tracker to find out who is still (dangerously) roaming Midtown.

5 Comments

  • It’s a sad state here in midtown, we went from trucks with creative food everywhere to nothing overnight, back to the bricks and that’s not a good thing.

  • I wandered around Midtown aimlessly searching for a fun, surprising food option, and they’re all gone, damn it. Next time I see this dude (http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisgold/4173465468/) I’m going to kick him in the shins.

  • My personal food truck mecca (50th and 51st between 6th & 7th) is now a desert. I’m seriously pissed off about that!

  • I was wondering if this would work…Can’t the food trucks take all orders online or by phone and “deliver” them all to the same location. As long as they don’t sell to walk ups it seems like a way around the prohibition from vending at a metered spot.

    • though a nice idea, i think it’d be a logistics nightmare. asides from the whole set up itself (especially if you do online ordering), phone would be ringing off the hook, you’re taking down orders, trying to fulfill them, and then have to figure out what time which orders go where. the likelihood that someone’s order gets messed up or missed or lost, etc would be pretty high, IMO.

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