Archive for Legislation

New Truck Alert: Homage Street Food

July 25, 2011 Blog, Legislation No comments

Chicago will soon be getting a new food truck: Homage Street Food. This new truck offers dishes inspired by street fare from an array of world cultures.

Mike Maloney & Elaine Toner, a husband and wife duo, run Homage and cite George Orwell’s novel Homage to Catalonia as inspiration for the truck’s name. Mike is the managed  The Grafton in Lincoln Square for several years, and Elaine worked in pastry kitchens and in restaurant service. The pair had been working on a similar restaurant concept, but decided to start with a food truck after attending San Francisco’s first annual Street Food Conference. Elaine says the decision was in part a financial one  but also because “global street food in a food truck just sounded right.” Plus, they got some Kickstarter cash for the food truck.

Homage owners Mike & Elaine

Their menu has a myriad of super foreign dishes such as: Indonesian gado-gado, Asian dumplings (one of my favorite foods), German currywurst, Peruvian butifarra, and Korean Tteokbokki. Not gonna lie, I have never heard of 80% of their menu items. However, for me food trucks are about culinary adventures, so I’m totally digging this truck’s menu. Plus, Homage wins brownie points for observing Meatless Monday.

Like many trucks in Chicago, current legislation puts the kibosh on some menu items they would like to serve. Elaine says, “There are so many fantastic street food dishes we will be unable to serve. A lot of the street food sweets seem to be in the form of a deep fried dessert. South African bunny chow, a dish I love, is an Indian-style curry served in a bread bowl. I really want to serve it on the truck, but it would hold together better if I could serve it to order as opposed to have it sitting in the warmer for some time.”

So, why a food truck when legislation is so prohibitive? “The food truck is a brilliant concept. I am excited to see great food trucks in Chicago right now. Fine cooks having an opportunity to cook their food…under the current ordinance anyway,” Elaine says. “It was just fantastic to see how the whole food truck community worked together. So, we too are now really excited to join the Chicago food truck scene.”

There is no set launch date, but on June 18 they told us they’d be launching in “a couple of weeks,” so we can expect to see them out and about very soon!

UPDATE: Homage plans to be on the road on August 1 or August 8!

5 Reasons Chicago Needs to Change Food Truck Legislation

July 14, 2011 Blog, Chicago, Legislation No comments
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For a long time, Chicagoans have begged the city to improve food truck legislation. We’ve patiently waited for such changes to be made, but it seems as though these pleas are falling upon apathetic ears.

Hey Mayor Emanuel, add this to your task list!

 

Currently, the law does not permit food trucks to prepare food on the truck; instead, food must be prepared in a kitchen that meets health code before being sent out for delivery/distribution on trucks. There are tons of easily-scalable obstacles that face the currently stunted Chicago food truck scene, yet the city is failing to eliminate these hindrances.

 

Why should the city alter food vendor legislation? We’re glad you asked.

  1. Fresher food Allowing food vendors to prepare food on the trucks means that we get fresher food. Win.
  2. City debt relief Regulating food trucks would likely mean that food from food trucks would be taxed like any other restaurant. This means that the city could easily generate some substantial income. It’s no secret that the city of Chicago is in debt and taking drastic measures to alleviate that burden. Why, then, would they not pluck the low-hanging fruit in front of them? In order for them to make some dough off of food trucks, they’d have to loosen restrictions and allow food trucks to operate as mobile restaurants.
  3. More trucks, more variety Some food simply isn’t good if it’s not eaten shortly after being prepared. This means that there are likely tons of awesome food trucks waiting in the wings until they can hand you food that’s hot off the grill. If you pair this with our previous point, this means that the amount of money food trucks can infuse into the local economy would grow exponentially.
  4. Maintain our culinary rock star reputation Chicago is proud of being regarded as a culinary Mecca. Building upon our previous point (notice a snowball effect happening?), Chicago would undoubtedly premier food trucks that rival some of our best restaurants. This would further solidify our reputation as culinary genii. Foodies come from far and wide to dine at Chicago restaurants, and these same people would likely revel in the opportunity to eat Michelin-level cuisine from a trendy truck. I smell food truck tours a-brewin’…
  5. Support the local economy When people buy their lunch from food trucks instead of McDonalds or Chipotle, for example,  their dollars are recycled back into the local economy, enriching the whole community.

 

We urge each of you reading this to send an e-mail to your alderman saying that you want legislation to be changed. You may think this is futile, but my alderman has been amazingly responsive to a myriad of issues I’ve e-mail him about, so they’re definitely listening. Not sure who your alderman is? Find out here. Not feeling up to drafting an e-mail? No worries, copy and paste this one we’ve drafted up so it will take you under a minute to aid in helping the food truck community.

 

There are many more reasons why lifting legal obstacles would be beneficial to us all. Tell everyone below in the comments area why you think lawmakers should take action to allow food trucks to thrive.

 

POLL: If the city let food trucks prepare fresh food on-site but would tax that food, would you frequent these trucks: MORE, LESS, THE SAME.

 

Photo by juggernautco on Flickr, used with permission under Creative Commons 2.0

 

 

A Glimmer of Foodie Hope

July 8, 2011 Blog, Legislation No comments

Hark, we hear the sound of Chicago food truck freaks rejoicing. It looks as though the city is on the brink of responding to public demand for lighter legislation for food trucks.

Is that a light we see at the end of the (cliché) proverbial food truck legislation tunnel? Image courtesy of Flickr user mituldesaimituldesai. Licensed under Creative Commons 2.0

The RedEye just reported that Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) “said the City Council could pass a law as soon as this summer that would allow chefs to cook and prepare fresh food in their trucks.” As you likely already know, food trucks are not currently allowed to prepare (or even assemble) food on their trucks.

Well, it’s July already, Alderman. Tick tock. The article quoted the Alderman saying these changes would take place “by November or December for sure.” We are generally pretty optimistic, but we’re not going to hold our breath on this one. Due to the fact that it has taken forevs to get any positive affirmation from city officials that this would happen at all, we wouldn’t be surprised if there were additional hold ups.

That said, Mayor Emanuel has been pretty hardcore lately about getting the city’s budget on track. He seems like the kind of mayor who would recognize this potential revenue stream for the city and barrel through all the red tape in a style much akin to that of Sonic the Hedgehog.