Mobile FINE Dining

Have you ever eaten at a mobile food truck?  If you have, you probably agree with me that they can be very much a hit and miss on the taste scale. But since 2008, this business has begun to shift more towards an upscale dining emporium.

Mobile kitchens, mobile canteens, chuck wagons or catering trucks are all common names for food trucks, which basically are portable or mobile restaurants that sell food.  Some food trucks even include ice cream trucks that sell mostly frozen or prepackaged food. But more so than ever now they are being referred to restaurants-on-wheels, because of their ability cater to specific meals, such as the breakfast truck, lunch truck or lunch wagon, and snack truck, break truck or taco truck.

Now since 2010, the Las Vegas culinary scene has had the increasingly honor of experiencing this fine dining on wheels.  Las Vegas now has several trucks roaming the Valley, providing our pallets with a variety of delicious foods.  It has become a social media craze. Tweeters will drive across town waiting in long lines just to experience the quality of their highly prized gourmet food.

I am sure like most of the population you are still skeptical.  In the past mobile food trucks served mainly construction and blue collar professions.  Initially, these mobile food preparation units got a bad rap, because many wondered how sanitation could be maintained with their limited space and resources.  Their bad reputation wasn’t just a myth.  The health department has had had to shut down many food trucks operations because of infestation problems. Without a continuous supply of running water, and proper cleaning, these trucks can be subjected to unwanted pests and make for a very unsanitary zone.

But since 2008, food truck owners have worked very hard to improve and change the mind of their hungry customers. And with the help of social media, like Twitter and Facebook, these companies are finally back on the road for financial success.

 Their menus display a whole new meaning to the word gourmet, and appeal to all ethnicities. They offer reasonable prices and superior cuisine.  Their array of inspired dishes offers a chance for customers to try foods that they normally would not otherwise experience.

Even though these food truck owners have had so much recent success, they constantly have to put up a fight to keep their businesses open.   There is a huge war currently with the “Brick and Mortar Restaurants” (a physical structured restaurant).  Restaurant owners contend the trucks pose unfair competition if unregulated, and trucks argue that they deserve a spot at the curbside table. City officials feel that the brick and mortar restaurants have,  a good argument, that it is an unfair playing field, that they... are paying perhaps 30, 40, 50 thousand dollars a year in taxes, where these (trucks) are spending maybe $500 a year. However the food truck owners would argue that their mode of business makes it possible for them to do what they enjoy without making the substantial financial investment a traditional restaurant requires.  A comment was made by one food truck owner that “ mobile food operations allow “the starving artist to paint or, in this situation, cook, “I bet some of the best chefs/home cooks would never be able to start a restaurant, but they could get a food truck or cart.”  

Both parties have debatable arguments, but for now the truck food industry continues to grow. For the time being they still get to enjoy the success of their mobile company and we as the customers get to continue eating such wonderful delicacies.