Un-Taco Trucks

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The humble taco truck is not so humble anymore.

Long the favorite of lunching workers and impoverished students, the taco truck is undergoing a culinary revolution.

It’s pulling up to curbs in upscale L.A. neighborhoods offering far more than

tacos al carbon or beef-and-bean burritos try organic salads, $4 gourmet cupcakes, Korean barbecue, even fresh sliced sushi.

In fact, with hip L.A. residents frequenting the trucks in ever greater numbers, the business has exploded so much in recent months that a friendly competition has broken out among vendors.

“We’ve been able to grow at a time when many businesses are shrinking and dying,” said Bobby Allen, general manger of Green Truck, an organic catering truck business that has grown from one truck in Culver City in 2006 to six this summer, including one in New York.

“Just the last few weeks I have seen six new trucks all offering different food show up at places we are parked,” Allen added.

That’s not to say that traditional taco trucks serving Mexican staples are fading. Taco trucks of all types are apparently more popular than ever in Los Angeles, which with its sprawl and congested freeways is particularly fertile ground for mobile vendors serving residents seeking a quick bite to eat.

In fact, by at least one measure, Los Angeles is the mobile vending capital of the country, with 6,500 licensed taco trucks and push cart vendors not counting the unlicensed ones. By contrast, New York has only 4,100 licensed mobile vendors.


What’s driving the growth?

The answers are several, including the trucks’ traditional cheaper menu at a time when many diners are trying to save a buck. There’s also the far lower cost of starting up and operating a truck compared with a restaurant.

But, as with many revolutions, technology has played a role.

Mobile food vendors have long been a part of lower-income, ethnic communities in East and South Los Angeles serving $1 tacos and $1 paletas, ice pops made from fruit popular in Latino communities.

Those vendors will generally park in the same spot for months, if not years, on end. But this new breed of vendors has ventured far from low-income neighborhoods, construction sites and office complexes.

A key reason for their success are social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, which allow customers to find out on their computers or cell phones the location of their favorite trucks. Walk by any of the newfangled trucks and it seems many customers are staring at their iPhones while waiting for their orders to be filled.

“Before Twitter, it was hard for people to know where to find you,” said Teddy Lawrence, owner of King Kone, a soft-serve ice-cream truck serving West Los Angeles. “Now if a spot you are at is not lucrative, you can move to a better one and let people know where to find you.”


Mobile revolution

Some pin the coming of age of the taco truck on the controversy that erupted last year when county supervisors passed an ordinance prohibiting the trucks from staying in one spot longer than an hour. The law was backed up by a $1,000 fine and up to six months in jail.

The ordinance was proposed by Eastside Supervisor Gloria Molina in response to complaints from restaurant operators who said taco trucks were parking outside their doors and siphoning off customers.

“The trucks don’t have to pay all the same costs like restaurants do, but they have the ability to pull up in front of some of them and take their business,” said Andy Casana, a lobbyist for the L.A. chapter of the California Restaurant Association. “It’s not really fair to the restaurants that go through all the regulations for safety and letter grading and pay their taxes to support the local community.”

But the ordinance created a controversy and a furious backlash among taco truck supporters, including the establishment of a Web site called SaveOurTacoTrucks.org and a petition drive that gathered 12,000 signatures. A lawsuit brought by a group of taco truck owners eventually overturned the law last year.

Jane Goldman, editor-in-chief of Chow Magazine, said that the controversy raised awareness of taco trucks among both would-be owners and residents of untapped markets such as West Los Angeles and the South Bay.

“It became trendy and cool to eat from food trucks that were in-the-know amongst chowhounds,” Goldman said. “The success of the taco truck among young people who were using the Internet to discuss which ones were good showed that there was demand for mobile food trucks.”

Many of the new mobile food trucks hitting the market in Los Angeles credit Kogi Korean BBQ-to-Go as a trendsetter since it was founded late last year.

Kogi, which has been featured twice in previous Business Journal articles, offers short-rib, chicken, pork and tofu tacos marinated in Korean flavors. It’s built up a cult following on Twitter that chases its trucks around Los Angeles, and tout its fare as a culinary fusion unique to the area.


Lower costs

Kogi inspired Takeshi Kimura to open up his truck Fish Lips, which is based in Torrance and serves the Westside and downtown. The truck serves up traditional sushi rolls as well as temari sushi, an unusual menu item that consists of a piece of fish such as salmon or eel rolled on top of ball of rice.

“I pretty much have followed (Kogi’s) model in trying to get the word out,” said Kimura. “But I think what each of us coming into this is thinking is how we can make it different.”

Like other taco truck operators, Kimura said he was only able to start his business because it cost so much less than a sit-down restaurant. The founders of Kogi said they started up with just $3,500 cash and a borrowed truck serving late-night diners in Hollywood, Venice and Westwood.

That’s about as cheap as it gets. More typical is Kimura, who spent $100,000 to get his business started, including the truck, equipment, and permits. But he estimates that’s just one-third the cost of opening a restaurant in the South Bay.

“We don’t need as much financing to get up and running as we would if we had a physical permanent location,” he said. “It makes sense right now as we can get more customers by charging less for our food.”

There are other advantages of not having a permanent location. On a recent afternoon, Allen, the owner of Green Truck, was doing good business on Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica when Kimura called him to ask if he could park alongside.

Allen was happy to oblige. Allen said he doesn’t view other trucks as competition, since a cluster of trucks tends to draw more potential customers.

“I said yes because people that want sushi aren’t the same that want organic food that we are serving,” said Allen, who runs his trucks on solar power and biodiesel made from vegetable oil used in the kitchens. “It’s still the Wild West out there for many of us with food trucks, so it’s good to keep allies if possible. It’s like we’re becoming a mobile food court community.”


Rolling forward

The recent proliferation of catering trucks in West Los Angeles has changed the perception of the taco truck for people like Nickolas James.

James always orders the grass-fed beef burger at the Green Truck parked outside his office on Miracle Mile; he ran into the truck while on the way to a few nearby quick-service eateries.

“I discovered that food off a truck could be really good. I had been intimidated by the roach-coach label applied to many of them,” said James, a development manager at E! Entertainment Television. “Now I am totally open to trying more trucks.”

So how are established restaurants fighting back, especially now that the county ordinance limiting the trucks has been overturned? Well, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Sprinkles Cupcakes and Border Grill, an upscale Mexican restaurant in Santa Monica, launched trucks this summer. 1950s-themed restaurant chain Johnny Rockets is planning on launching a mobile truck sometime this year.

Sprinkles is selling cupcakes at the truck for $4 each, 75 cents more than what is normally charged at its only two stores in Beverly Hills and Newport Beach, where lines are notoriously long.

Border Grill is more in line with its fierce competition, selling its truck tacos for about $2. A two-taco plate lunch in the restaurant costs up to $11.95.

Goldman, the magazine editor, said that mobile food trucks are a hot trend but likely to have staying power in Los Angeles.

“If you can get people in a city with so many options like Los Angeles to follow around a restaurant virtually on wheels with traffic as bad as it can be,” she said, “then I think you have defined success in selling food and have a bright future.”