HEIGHTS SHIPPING CONTAINER FOOD COURT A food-truck-court-like conglomeration of shipping containers housing vendors selling waffles, burgers, barbecue, Mexican, Asian, or Cajun cuisine is being planned for a 25,000-sq.-ft. lot co-owned by the proprietor of C&D Scrap Metal at the corner of North Shepherd and 14th St., the Chronicle‘s David Kaplan reports. “Kitchens on 14th,” as designed by Uptown Sushi and Tiny Boxwood’s architect Issac Preminger, is expected to include trees, water features, and communal eating areas in a park-like setting. [Prime Property]
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Umm – yes, please!
At some point, the successful food trucks that provide consistently good food will setup tables and chairs, stake out an “area” in this experiment that is their spot, get so busy they’ll need someone whose only job is to take food orders and handle payment, even bring the food to your table. Eventually, they might even stake out parking just for their customers.
OH WAIT, WE ALREADY HAVE THOSE, THEY’RE CALLED RESTAURANTS.
This food truck-mania is just getting silly.
Now pass me an apple/lemon-strudel cupcake with neon princess sprinkles with 15% of the profit going towards gloves for people displaced by encroaching solar panel farms.
Neat,
It’ll be like Austin’s stationary food truck court.
Can we pay in $2 bills?
Great idea, but I don’t think that lot will have enough parking to get past COH requirements.
SL,
I may be wrong here, but I beliebve one of the restrictions of a food truck is you can’t have outside benches.
There’s a perfect empty lot for this on Summer and Sawyer. Wish they’d put it over there. Have been wanting that exact thing there for awhile now.
SL, brilliant comment.
Frankly, the bearded person who runs C&D is not the guy I would want running a thing like this.
Did any of you guys actually read the article? “Food-truck-court-like” doesn’t equal food trucks. They are operating out of shipping containers which only have wheels when strapped to them. So they’d be subject to the same COH rules as any other non-mobile restaurant. It sounds like a diverse and classier version of a ballpark snack bar.
What this is going for is the spirit of a food truck with the consistent location of a restaurant.
The C&D guy is likely just renting the land or stalls to the vendors. It really is just an outdoor concession stand. Where it becomes something much more is based on the people behind the counter and what food they produce.
The parked food truck concept that exists in Austin is doing the same thing with benches, tables and some parking.
Also, since these won’t necessarily be full blown restaurants and more like a concession stand, parking requirements probably won’t be enforceable.
The MAM’s snoball stand works off this premise off of a lot in the Heights. They operate like a food truck from the rules perspective, but they just hall the trailer into the same lot everyday they are open.
Sounds like another flea market…
SL, as far as I know that’s exactly the point of the food truck – to one day be so successful that they can lease physical space, hire staff, etc. They’re (literally) restaurant training wheels. Start up costs are low & it’s possible to go from concept to reality is much less time than a standard restaurant would take to get off the ground. Torchy’s in Austin is a great example – they started in a small pull-off area on S. 1st Street a few years ago, then upgraded to the “trailer park” where they’re currently parked, and in the meantime they’ve expanded to 6 or 7 physical locations (with walls n tables n stuff!). Food trucks are a win-win for everyone – folks who are out of work & looking to start their own thing but don’t have the cash flow to spark up a big restaurant immediately, and folks who are looking for great food on the cheap.
I can’t see this being a successful venture in Houston where the temperatures are so high most of the year. If you think you’ll like eating outside in that area, just try walking a few blocks on North Shepherd.
The Austin food truck “trailer park” on S. Congress was doing gangbusters business when I was there in July, and the afternoon temps were over 110.