RSS FeedWishful Thinking
Late last year we took a trip to Portland, OR, and like everyone else who has been there lately we fell in love with the food carts. A wide variety of good food (for a reasonable price) spread all around the city.
DC, of course, now has more to offer than just the half smoke carts that dot the city. Food trucks have popped up all over the metro area, tweeting their daily locations and also serving a wide variety of good food for a reasonable price.
But we still think DC could be well served by some fixed location food carts just like Portland. Granted there appeared to us to be a lot more vacant lots in Portland, the kinds of places where these carts could easily set up. DC does have some streets with wide sidewalks, and we think the sidewalk in front of the MLK Library would be the ideal starting point.
Like much of Penn Quarter the library is located within 2 blocks of all 5 Metro lines, the sidewalk in the front of the library is gigantic, and it would make the library a destination for tourists & locals alike. While we’re big fans of the food trucks in DC, we would also love to have specific vendors accessible in the same place for months at a time.
It will probably never happen, but we think 6 or so food carts in front of the library would make that stretch of 9th Street NW one of the most popular blocks in our neighborhood.
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Comments
Those Portland carts look pretty awesome, I’d love to see some here in DC. It’d add a nice layer to the whole food truck/cart scene, that being reliability of a constant location. Now while I love food trucks & I have to admit part of the fun is tracking them down each day or seeing which ones are close, but I’d also like to know when I get a lunch craving for, say Fojol’s, I don’t have to spend my lunch hour getting to where ever they are currently in town. So I’d love to see some Food Stands, but as you’ve said it probably not going to happen.
MLK Library sidewalk seems like a good potential pilot project. My guess is if the pilot vending project were done now, it would be part of that program.
Unfortunately, the environment under the arcade is less than inviting, even turning people off from coming to the Library. Thus, I think instead of a food cart or two, what is needed there is a cluster of food vendors — think international food emporium of independently owned start-ups.
And i agree with Paul, the $1,500 fixed fee in lieu of taxes needs to be re-evaluated with perhaps a two tier structure: one for food and another for hard goods to be fair to those vendors selling items that don’t sell like lobster rolls. Not only is the city loosing potential tax dollars but the current structure is unfair to the dining spots that have to pay sales taxes,monthly rent, utilities, and a share of the property taxes.
If it is true the carts only pay $1,500 per year, then that really does need changed – otherwise it’s punishing the restaurants that commit to the neighborhood and spend TONS of money on the brick and mortar locations. Hear that DC Council? Here is an EASY stream of revenue that might prevent some less ideal fee/tax hikes….
I think this is a great idea! The current sidewalk in front of the library is completely depressing.
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I visited Portland in late 2009 and was also very impressed with the food cart scene. They basically take the edge of surface parking lots and allow fixed location foodtrucks to park there and face outward towards the sidewalk. This creates an amenity for the neighborhood and reduces the deadening blight of the surface parking.
I’ve also been a big fan of the food truck explosion here in DC. However one thing is tempering my enthusiasm. Apparently the D.C. food trucks pay just an annual fee of $1500 in lieu of sales taxes. That needs to change. The Lobster Roll truck if it were charging the same sales tax restaurants charge would generate that much tax revenue in a week or two of sales. The trucks already inherently have far lower overheard than brick and mortar establishments. They don’t deserve a tax break too.