City cracks down on "illegal" Food Trucks

[Peepers]

Right, sanity isn't a big issue in my books, its more of a question why ? Why would you rather eat from a food truck then a restaurant that serves the same food on a nice patio !

The only argument I can buy is if speed is an issue, but then one must question the quality of the food.

Unless you have tried the food from the food truck vendors I mentioned above there is really no way that I can adequately make my argument.

The fact is you simply cannot get the same quality of food being offered from the food trucks from a restaurant at the same price. Even the sandwiches offered from Caplansky's Truck are less expensive then from their brick and mortar restaurant.

Downtown Toronto has a severe lack of good quality affordable food. Almost everything downtown is overpriced and/or garbage.

The Food Trucks were starting to change all that and now it looks like they are being run out of town.

 

[timeo]

Right, sanity isn't a big issue in my books, its more of a question why ? Why would you rather eat from a food truck then a restaurant that serves the same food on a nice patio !

Cost? Convenience? Speed? Taste? I've had some incredible food truck food in Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Much better than what you can find in "sanitary" restaurants in Toronto. It's like trying to describe the colour blue to the blind. Unless you've seen/had it, you don't know what you're missing out on.

 

[Peepers]

Cost? Convenience? Speed? Taste? I've had some incredible food truck food in Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Much better than what you can find in "sanitary" restaurants in Toronto. It's like trying to describe the colour blue to the blind. Unless you've seen/had it, you don't know what you're missing out on.

Well said! I get the feeling that some of the above comments critical of food trucks are from people who have not actually sampled food truck food in Toronto (other than perhaps the chip wagons in front of city hall). It really is like trying to describe the colour blue to the blind.

 

[TOareaFan]

Well said! I get the feeling that some of the above comments critical of food trucks are from people who have not actually sampled food truck food in Toronto (other than perhaps the chip wagons in front of city hall). It really is like trying to describe the colour blue to the blind.

I admit to having never sampled the food from any of the trucks that you mention.....and that is no accident. Not a fan of the whole idea of food trucks. Can the serve good food on a limited menu basis? Likely. Can they do it at a lower price than a regular/sit-down food vendor....most probably. The last part is my beef.......the reason they can is they have a lower operating cost basis and an "unfair" competitive advantage and I happen to treasure restaurants over trucks.

Perhaps the lack of support for this "cause" that you have noted has more to do with that than anything else?

 

[timeo]

The last part is my beef.......the reason they can is they have a lower operating cost basis and an "unfair" competitive advantage and I happen to treasure restaurants over trucks.

There's a misleading and false dichotomy in that argument that doesn't acknowledge the fact that food trucks not only add to the vibrancy and depth of the food and restaurant industry, but can also create new markets and users in that industry. I think truck owners and people who frequent them both acknowledge that while food trucks serve the public in similar ways, they aren't necessarily substitutes for each other. Sometimes I just want a snack, so I'll get some small bites so that I don't have to actually sit down at a restaurant and deal with all that that entails. Conversely, sometimes I'm in the mood for the better experience that going to a restaurant gives, so I'll do that instead. It's really about the freedom and choice to buy prepared food from where I want to buy it in the format that I want to buy it in. Competition is not a bad thing - it leads to better food, better service, and an overall better dining scene for Torontonians. In my eyes, that can only be a good thing.

 

[doug]

The last part is my beef.......the reason they can is they have a lower operating cost basis and an "unfair" competitive advantage and I happen to treasure restaurants over trucks.

You must hate hotdog carts and lemonade stands.

How offensive do you find vending machines?

 

[Ice_Burn]

Or Groupons, or all-you-can-eat specials, or any of the thousands of other 'unfair' advantages one restaurant has over any other.

It's frankly amazing that hundreds of cities around the world have restaurants and food trucks that coexist without cannibalizing each others business.

This is the most idiotic argument against food trucks I have ever heard, and the restaurants that are trying to honestly put this forth have earned an immediate and permanent boycott from me, because they clearly don't respect me as a consumer or a goddamn thinking human being.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Report on the Portland experience:

http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/index.cfm?a=200738&c=52798

AoD

 

[TOareaFan]

You must hate hotdog carts and lemonade stands.

How offensive do you find vending machines?

Not a fan of hot dog carts.......haven't seen a lemonade stand in about 20 years and it was a couple of teens raising money for a sick neighbour (so obvious exception).

I don't patronize vending machines.....can't, honestly, remember the last time I ever used one.

If I am eating "on the run"....I will jump into a fast food place or deli........if I need a bottle of water or a v-8...well there are convenience stores.

I have just found that there is nothing that a "truck" can provide me that I can't get elsewhere.

 

[Ice_Burn]

Not a fan of hot dog carts.......haven't seen a lemonade stand in about 20 years and it was a couple of teens raising money for a sick neighbour (so obvious exception).

I don't patronize vending machines.....can't, honestly, remember the last time I ever used one.

If I am eating "on the run"....I will jump into a fast food place or deli........if I need a bottle of water or a v-8...well there are convenience stores.

I have just found that there is nothing that a "truck" can provide me that I can't get elsewhere.

The point of doug's post, if I am correct, is asking you if any of those things (like food trucks, apparently) constitute an unfair competitive advantage over restaurants, not your personal taste for them. We get it, you dig restaurants (no one is on the other side of this opinion, restaurants are good in the right situation).

 

[TOareaFan]

The point of doug's post, if I am correct, is asking you if any of those things (like food trucks, apparently) constitute an unfair competitive advantage over restaurants, not your personal taste for them. We get it, you dig restaurants (no one is on the other side of this opinion, restaurants are good in the right situation).

I think (I don't know) it is a far less expensive way to sell, lets say, burgers to set up a truck in a parking lot or by a roadside than it is to rent some space, build out a store, and pay the tradditional taxes that go with that....so, yes I do think they represent unfair/unlevel competition.

When I hear some people comment on one of the benefits being that they serve equally good food at a lower price.....that sort of confirms to me that they have some sort of cost advantage built into their prices.

 

[Ice_Burn]

I think (I don't know) it is a far less expensive way to sell, lets say, burgers to set up a truck in a parking lot or by a roadside than it is to rent some space, build out a store, and pay the tradditional taxes that go with that....so, yes I do think they represent unfair/unlevel competition.

When I hear some people comment on one of the benefits being that they serve equally good food at a lower price.....that sort of confirms to me that they have some sort of cost advantage built into their prices.

You are still not addressing the question.

Are other existing venues of prepared food distribution (vending machines, hot dog carts, chip trucks, pop-up restaurants, etc) 'unlevel/unfair' to restaurants?

And to add, what is so special about Toronto's restaurant scene that they can't compete with food trucks, when so many restaurants in other cities around the world are not only doing this, but thriving? Is our restaurant culture so terrible that they can't take the heat? And if so, what do you like so much about it?

I don't think that anyone would argue that it's cheaper to sell a sandwich out of a truck than a restaurant, but why are you tossing aside the competitive advantages of a restaurant (more of a formal dining experience, year-round clientele, etc) which would seemingly cancel out the cost advantages of food trucks?

 

[doug]

well there are convenience stores.

They're not restaurants.

 

[TOareaFan]

You are still not addressing the question.

Are other existing venues of prepared food distribution (vending machines, hot dog carts, chip trucks, pop-up restaurants, etc) 'unlevel/unfair' to restaurants?

First time I saw that question.....so I will answer it ....yes, I believe they do.

And to add, what is so special about Toronto's restaurant scene that they can't compete with food trucks, when so many restaurants in other cities around the world are not only doing this, but thriving? Is our restaurant culture so terrible that they can't take the heat?

I am not in the restaurant business so I can't answer that question. I got involved in this discussion because someone expressed wonder over how few people were supportive of the trucks...I just gave my view. They offer me nothing that I can't get elswhere and I think they have a cost advantage. Whether or not restaurants can (or should) survive that....I don't know.

I don't think that anyone would argue that it's cheaper to sell a sandwich out of a truck than a restaurant, but why are you tossing aside the competitive advantages of a restaurant (more of a formal dining experience, year-round clientele, etc) which would seemingly cancel out the cost advantages of food trucks?

I hardly think the necessity to stay open year round, regardless of seasonality or flows of business is a cost advantage. I would argue that the trucks, again, have the advantage of only selling when people are "out and about" during the busy tourist season and summer vacations when suburbanites are making their day trips into the city. The hot dog vendor outside my office building (nice enough guy) spends 6 months a year here selling food when the going is good and 6 months a year in his native Cuba...when the weather ain't so good here.

 

[Ice_Burn]

I hardly think the necessity to stay open year round, regardless of seasonality or flows of business is a cost advantage. I would argue that the trucks, again, have the advantage of only selling when people are "out and about" during the busy tourist season and summer vacations when suburbanites are making their day trips into the city. The hot dog vendor outside my office building (nice enough guy) spends 6 months a year here selling food when the going is good and 6 months a year in his native Cuba...when the weather ain't so good here.

So these trucks can't even stay open and maintain their clientele throughout the year, basically forcing them into getting some kind of secondary income for the winter months (I don't know your Cuban vendor's situation), and you don't see this as a mitigating factor of not paying some of the fixed costs associated with a restaurant? Especially with gas prices being what they are and the fact that you still usually have to staff the food truck, I don't think the disparity is as massive as you think, in favour of these trucks.