By SARAH ALLAM
Khaled Othman begins his day earlier than most do—at six in the morning. Every weekday he makes the trek from his home in Astoria, Queens to 60th Street and Broadway in Midtown Manhattan. Once there, he is on his feet for 11 hours straight, in all types of weather, until five in the afternoon, serving breakfast and lunch to the droves of New Yorkers and tourists who come to sample the cuisine from his halal food cart, and has been doing so in this location for three years.
Othman, 48, is just one of the hundreds of street food vendors who are serving up a different take on “fast food,” which is exploding in popularity, especially for those trying to cope with harsh economic times.
Food carts have been a New York mainstay for decades. “Street food has been available on the streets of New York since it was New Amsterdam,” says David Weber, president of the New York City Food Truck Association. “However, the food truck trend is a relatively recent development.”
Hot-dog carts and nut vendors are often seen as synonymous with New York. But the food truck revolution goes beyond that. “One of the first branded food trucks in New York City was the iconic orange MUD Truck which opened in 2005,” says Weber. “Branded food trucks serving differentiated food started developing into a trend in 2007 and 2008. Some of the first trucks were sweet trucks like The Treats Truck and Wafels & Dinges.”
Food trucks have now become enormously popular throughout the United States, especially in large metropolises. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, approximately 2.5 billion people worldwide eat street food per day. In New York, the foods served up from trucks vary endlessly—dishing out everything from chicken over rice to waffles with whipped cream – catering to an already “fast food nation” but in a very different way.
“Customers that choose to eat from a truck are often looking for tasty food, convenience, great service, or a good value,” says Weber, listing the reasons why food trucks have become trendy.
“People want lunch food or snack food that is cheap and tasty, and food trucks, most of which, these days, produce specialty products in ‘ethnic’ cuisines supply tasty meals that are exotic in comparison with the ubiquitous burgers of fast-food franchises,” says sociologist Sharon Zukin, a professor at Brooklyn College.
Although there have been food trucks in New York City for a long time, the new food truck revolution began around 2008 in Los Angeles with the success of a food truck called Kogi, which took Korean staples such as short ribs and kimchi and gave them an innovative West Coast twist. Kogi was different because it used social networking to spread the word about their business. In its February 28, 2009 issue, Newsweek called Kogi “America’s first viral eatery.”
Since then, the popularity of social networking has helped food trucks become a great success throughout the country. “Developments in social media … makes it easier to track trucks over space and time,” says Weber.
In her book Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places, Zukin details another facet of the rich history of food vendors in New York City: the Latino vendors of Red Hook, who have been active since the 1970s. “They prepare traditional foods from family recipes as they remember them with ingredients that are at hand,” Zukin writes, “recreating a taste of home along with innovative fusions.”
This is one of the secrets of the food carts’ success. Many food cart vendors take traditional recipes familiar to their heritages and vamp them up to cater to the on the go urbanite. Foods that were perhaps unfamiliar to the average American palate, such as falafel or pupusas, have become much more popularized since food carts made them readily available.
The carts have also come to light thanks in part to the digital age. “The media has contributed greatly to the popularity of food trucks by writing them up for providing ‘authentic’ food,” says Zukin. In her book, she also details how food blogs and food wikis that emerged around 2003 helped to spread the word about these carts, specifically the Latino carts in Red Hook.
Othman’s cart provides both familiar and exotic foods. For breakfast, he usually serves up coffee, tea, juices, eggs and omelettes, bagels with cream cheese, muffins, and danishes. Noon starts the lunch hour, and Othman serves halal food cart staples such as chicken over rice, beef over rice, and falafel, along with salads, breaded fried shrimp, steak, French fries, and hot heros.
The food carts appeal to a wide variety of age groups, but they are most popular among the middle-aged and middle class, according to Othman, who has been in the food cart business for 15 years (moving from location to location). “The employees from the Trump Tower come here all year round, but during the winter time, about 60 percent of my customers are students, usually from the New York Institute of Technology or Fordham,” he says.
Nicole Barone, 17, who buys from a food cart at 4th Avenue and 69th Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, said that food carts attract more working-class people. “I think they would appeal to people older than myself because when they get home from work they have no time to prepare a meal for their families so they just buy four plates of food from the cart,” she said.
One of the most important reasons the food carts are so popular is that the prices are very cheap for the amount of food given, especially in the light of the economic downturn that has affected millions.
“Our prices are very reasonable for most people,” Othman says. “For five or six dollars you can have a whole meal, such as a combination meat platter and a soda. This is what makes most of the people eat from food carts, because compared to the prices of McDonald’s and Burger King, we beat the prices all the time.”
Weber says that since capital is more scarce in an economic downturn, the low startup costs for a food truck are attractive for those who want to start a business.
According to Zukin, one of the reasons food vendors can sell a lot of food for a small price is because they do not have to pay rent. “For the suppliers, that is, the owners of food trucks, they can sell their products cheap because they don’t pay rent,” she says. “And maybe they have very few employees who work at low wages, maybe even off the books. So their expenses are much lower than restaurant owners,’” she adds.
“It’s $4 for a gyro and $5 for a big plate and it’s so filling and really cheap,” says Barone. “If you go to the pizzeria, $5 only gets you two slices and it isn’t that filling. I can never finish a plate of food from the halal cart simply because they give you so much.”
Othman adds: “For $1.25, you can have a full breakfast: a coffee with muffin or a danish, which is cheaper than any coffee place.” According a poll conducted by Mobile Cuisine Magazine, about 72 percent of food carts accept cash only.
Another reason food carts became so popular is their accessibility. The carts are located conveniently by the sidewalks, never too far away from each other. “The carts are easy to get access to,” says Barone. “Sometimes when I’m out at night and I want to get food, the carts are right there, I don’t have to wait in line or do any of that,” she said.
“In my opinion, one of the most important reasons why food carts are so popular is that New York City is an `open’city for all types of businesses,” Othman says. “There are tourists all year round. It is easy for tourists to find a nearby place to eat; they don’t have to go somewhere far.”
The carts are accessible also because they stay open late; many stay open 24 hours a day.
With all these food carts popping up throughout the city, there is competition between the carts, as for other businesses. “If I see a hardworking person I know, sometimes I would give them a break [with the price],” Othman said. “I also do this for the competition. There are at least six or seven carts in the area.”
Like traditional restaurants, food trucks have developed steady customers who are faithful to a certain cart. “The quality of my food and my attitude towards people are what keeps the people coming back,” Othman says. “Some steady customers would actually wait for me to finish with other customers when I’m having a busy day, because they feel comfortable with me and I know what they want to order.”
New York City makes it relatively simple to get a food vendor’s license. Othman says one first applies in an office at 42 Broadway. “Then you have to go to 125 Broadway to take a four-day class about food sanitation and preparation,” he explains. “After the four days, you take a test, and if you pass, you get the permit, which you have to wear around your neck when you’re working.”
Despite recent crackdowns by the city Health Department, food trucks remain relatively popular. Some carts have been closed down due to unsanitary and unsafe practices (often first brought to light through photos that have been taken by previous customers). The health scandals haven’t really dimmed or affected the business for these food carts, but they have made consumers much more aware and much more selective in choosing a food cart to eat from.
“My cart is for a fact clean,” says Barone, referring to the vendor she buys from in Bay Ridge. “I see them prepare my food, I see them cut the meat and put the food at a proper temperature. This is the only cart I go to because I know for a fact that it’s clean.”
Othman details the often-testy relationship between the vendors and the Health Department: “Any kind of food violation, like temperature, no gloves, no hat, if you’re not at least five feet from the buildings, the employees are responsible and we have to pay it out of our own pockets, and these violations can go from $500 to $1,000.”
When asked about what he would do in the case of having to use the restroom, he says, “When I need to go to the bathroom, I let a guy from a neighboring cart watch over my cart until I get back. If the Health Department comes to check your cart and you’re in the bathroom and no one’s there, you can get a violation.”
Othman says people sometimes complain that he wears only one glove. “Yet they don’t know that by the Health Department’s law, I can wear only one glove so I can serve food with one hand and take the cash and give the change with the other hand.”
Health issues or no health issues, food carts are here to stay. They have their own reality television show (The Great Food Truck Race on Food Network), a spot in the National Restaurant Association’s annual restaurant show, and even their own award, known as the Vendy Award.
Photo: Khaled Othman and his food truck. (Sarah Allam)
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