Food Trucks Research Articles

Trade Associations and the Legitimation of Entrepreneurial Movements

Trade associations are an important topic of investigation for nonprofit and voluntary sector researchers because they serve civic purposes and help to support innovative areas of entrepreneurship. We examine how local trade associations in the emerging gourmet food truck industry help to reduce uncertainty and augment industry legitimacy by (a) representing collective interests when challenged by regulators and incumbents (e.g., restaurants), (b) generating collective identity and creating cultural capital, and (c) providing a regime to manage “tragedies of the commons,” procure club goods, and promote self-regulation. We draw on social media data and narrative accounts by industry activists to explicate the evolution of the field from 2008 to 2012 in 11 cities. Findings suggest that trade associations, as an often-overlooked type of mutual benefit association, are key players in the legitimation of creative industries.

The Posture of a Neighbor: Building Relationships through Story

During my sophomore year at Calvin College on the eastern reaches of Grand Rapids, Michigan, I transitioned from the residence halls, alive with energetic eighteen-year-olds, to a creaky century-old parsonage on the west side of Eastern Avenue, down which emergency vehicles make nightly pilgrimages and sirens provide the evening soundtrack. I was living in Project Neighborhood, six homes gathered under the banners of intentional living, community engagement, and Calvin College residence life. The program attracts justice-minded students and mentors; each house comprises a covenant that centers on concerns of, among others, Christian discipleship, environmental sustainability, local activism, and food justice. The most significant component, though, is the commitment each house makes to serve its neighborhood in partnership with a local organization. My house, Peniel, which means “to see the face of God,” received support from Eastern Avenue Christian Reformed Church, so we worshipped there on the occasional Sunday, spent a few Saturdays at the food truck, and participated in its tutoring program on Thursday nights.

Holler If You Can Hear Me

Holler If You Can Hear Me Sharon P. Holland (bio) Bynam, North Carolina, is a town that you can literally look the other way while going through and miss entirely. In the town center, what was once a general store/post office is now a local venue for small events showcasing new Southern music and arts.1 Food trucks with gelato, hotdogs, and Eastern-style BBQ are parked just outside the front door and I swear the square footage of the trucks seems to outdo that of the General Store. Inside it is hot as h-e-l-l. I mean juke joint hot. Multiple fans buzz around us and little kids run from one end of the store to the other, opting in the end to bolt out the back door to lengthen the landing strip for their game of tag or whatever kids play at these days. I was there to help celebrate a lover’s birthday get-together: a concert by Justin Robinson and the Mary Annettes. I found myself at the most unlikely spot for a dose of hip hop, string band, old time, and R&B sound all smashed together. As one music critic notes, “The Mary Annettes … offer a future vision of what folk music could sound like, taking polyglot turns through several different strains. There’s hip hop and Appalachian tunes, indie-rock balladry and a touch of (thanks to Stohl) Klezmer. Their songs are testaments to integration or at the very least cooperative creation, where old ideas get stronger by colliding, fracturing and forming something new.”2 Back at the general store, the crowd was a mix of hipsters, thirty-somethings, and queer folks munching on vegan burritos and at times sitting perfectly still in the stifling heat waiting for Robinson’s band to play cuts from their debut CD, Bones for Tinder. Of Carolina Chocolate Drops fame, Justin Robinson was now with his own act, but with the memory of fiddler Joe Thompson’s sound and the soft echo of the holler not far behind. As many of us know, the Carolina Chocolate Drops took their name from the Tennessee Chocolate Drops—another black string band that recorded in the 1930s, their most anthologized piece being the “Knox County Stomp”—like the hip hop that we know today, string bands [End Page 151] seemed to proliferate these versions of territorial battling, each band coming out with a faster or meaner version of the original. Justin Robinson married a man in Boston, Massachusetts, because he could not do so in North Carolina.3 And he still can’t since on May 8, 2011, North Carolina voters passed an amendment to the state constitution. In short, it provided that “Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State. This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.” You have got to love the way in which the amendment both restricts civil liberties, while also safeguarding property rights and contract law. Nice. A woman just in front of me is sweating so profusely, I think she just might fall out. A man two rows down from me wears a T-shirt with a Confederate flag on the back and something about a history lesson scribbled under it—I pay little attention to him, except for the fact that he is blocking my narrow view of the stage. A tall black man in the crowd catches my eye and we both crank our chins in the direction of the man with the history T-shirt and we shake our heads: … it takes all kinds … bless his heart. When the Mary Annettes finally get going, I am mesmerized. I love it … all of it. Sure, I remember the Chocolate Drops—who wouldn’t remember lyrics like “Cornbread and butterbeans and you across the table/ Eatin’ beans and making love as long as I am able,” or the 2010 cover of Blu Cantrell’s “Hit Em Up Style.” But in...

From Place to NonPlace: A Case Study of Social Media and Contemporary Food Trucks

Street food has contributed to the vitality of urban life across cultures for centuries; however, in recent years, major US cities are witnessing its transformation into a highly mobile service that benefits from online social media platforms. Place, social media and mobility in this food truck phenomenon are the basis for a methodological approach that aims to uncover new social dynamics occurring in cities. The first investigation departs from a social factors analysis of public space in order to reveal the cognitive and behavioural differences among various actors in relation to their direct experience of the environment specifically focusing on users of social media and non-users. The study then addresses the social processes of electronic communication and mobility among food trucks that transcend place. This research approach employs a ‘nonplace’ theoretical framework to visualize a temporal and malleable network of interconnected social and spatial processes. These investigations offer the field of urban design an analytical basis for cities confronted with emerging social processes of electronic communication and a framework to rethink the relational meaning, use, and relevance of contemporary urban place.

Welcome to Atlanta!

Welcome to Atlanta!

Eat Your Art Out

We do it three times a day with our hands and mouths in coordinated movement. Sometimes with careful planning and artistry; other times mindlessly and on the go; sometimes as a personal guilty pleasure, or in celebration with others: We consume food. Food does not merely fulfill a biological need; it also ties cultures, regions, and generations to each other. Passed down over centuries, food is a type of storytelling; it traces migratory movements, evokes the immigrant experience, and underscores the cross-cultural marriage of people to place. Food also connotes social status, oftentimes unabashedly proclaiming one’s allegiance to country or class or, in a broader sense, taste. Historian Massimo Montanari argues, “Taste is a cultural product, not, in fact, subjective and incommunicable, but rather collective and eminently communicative. It is a cultural experience transmitted to us from birth” (Montanari, 2006, p. 62). In recent years, the idea of food and cooking as a cultural product has benefitted from a renewed focus, thanks in part to cable television cooking shows; increased public awareness of farming, consumption, and food politics; and the proliferation of impassioned food movements, such as slow food, pop-up restaurants, progressive dining, and gourmet food trucks.

Chicago's Food Trucks: Wrapped in Red Tape

Nationwide, trucks brought in $630 million last year, an increase of 3.6 percent over the previous year. However, the rise of the food trucks hasn't come without trouble. A recent court ruling held that vendors in New York City aren't allowed to park in metered parking spaces. Truck operators in suburban Washington, D.C., are hamstrung by the hodgepodge of regulations that vary from one municipality to the next. A license to cook in one city is no protection from a citation in the next. Chicago wraps food trucks in more red tape than perhaps any other major city. Food-truck vendors are forbidden to cook on their trucks—or even do so much as slice a sandwich in half. In practicality, such restrictions limit the city's food-truck fleet to the small catering trucks known as “roach coaches” that typically serve construction sites and industrial parks.

Perishable Information in an Increasingly Mobile World

This article offers an observation of information seeking and use “in the wild” that touches upon ways in which technology is merged with social interactions, and physical space, particularly in a highly transient environment. The study analyzes information dynamics of three everyday life mobile activities (food trucks, the urban playground movement, and spontaneous shrines). In summary, more attention needs to be drawn to studying how society handles perishable matter as a means, or a goal, in information seeking.

Will tweet for food. The impact of twitter and New York City food trucks, online, offline, and inline

Will tweet for food. The impact of twitter and New York City food trucks, online, offline, and inline

Kogi Truck Culture

Food trucks have become a large phenomenon in many parts of Southern California. In fact, the University of California, Los Angeles had begun permitting several food trucks to park on campus for hungry students, in response to the closure of the Bombshelter, a major campus food court. These trucks’ budding popularity has been spurred by the notable Kogi Trucks, which began its business serving those in Los Angeles. To explore the heart of this Kogi hype, I took two trips to the intersection of Gayley and Charles E. Young Drive in Westwood, Los Angeles. Two themes had emerged during my observations: gatekeepers, as well as a shift in conversation focus corresponding with time and position in line. I adopted the Metoyer-Duran gatekeeper model to illustrate the various personalities I encountered. In addition, I propose an information-seeking model to portray a general scheme of what happens in a Kogi waiting line. Possible considerations for future, more extensive studies are also noted.

LA’s Taco Truck War: How Law Cooks Food Culture Contests

This paper examines the Los Angeles “Taco Truck War” (2008-9), when the city of Los Angeles and LA county used parking regulations to restrict “loncheros,” i.e. “taco trucks.” It describes the legal doctrine used by courts to invalidate these local restrictions. The California Vehicle code makes local food truck regulations illegal. Decades of court decisions affirm this. The paper sheds light, legal and cultural, on food truck debates, which will surely expand nationwide. It examines: the cultural and business arguments for food truck regulations; food’s role in migrant, community, and national identities; Mexican food’s influence in California culture; and recent trends in food trucks such as Koggi BBQ.