The State of Mobile Food Vendors in Midtown Post Sandy

Many people are slowly making their way back to work today and most restaurants are back open, but you may notice less food trucks and carts on the street. And this time it’s not because of the NYPD. Many of the gourmet food trucks are continuing their effort of donating food to the hardest hit areas like Staten Island, Red Hook, and the Rockaways, thanks to the generous support of Jet Blue, the New York City Food Truck Association, and private donations. You can continue to donate money with their indiegogo campaign. These neighborhoods need Phil’s Steaks and Wafels & Dinges much more than we do right now.

But it’s not all feel good stories coming from the food truck world…

The Red Hook Lobster Truck was flooded along with their brick and mortar business in Red Hook. According to their Twitter feed they plan on re-building, so we can expect them back on the street eventually- but hopefully it will be sooner rather than later. Others have come out of the storm unscathed, but difficulty in finding gas and power outages in kitchens have prevented trucks like Uncle Gussy’s and Cinnamon Snail from coming into the city.

I’m still stuck in Jersey City due to no PATH service and monster waits for the ferry so I haven’t seen the cart situation myself, but I’ve heard about some of our favorite food carts. I know that Biryani Cart and Kwik Meal are both back in action along Sixth Avenue. Bapcha is also safe (although it’s not clear to me whether they are back out). Freddy the King of Falafel was supposed to return from vacation today. Has anybody seen him?

Once the carts are all back on the street, it’s more important than ever to show our support and gratitude. I think mobile food vendors have proved once again how important they are to the livelihood and perseverance of this city.

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