I’m Sick of Food Trucks

Let’s face it: Eating at these new-fangled food trucks is harder than eating at traditional restaurants. Once upon a time, food trucks were the convenient answers for workers who couldn’t take the time to go anywhere for lunch and couldn’t stomach another brown bag turkey sandwich. The truck would pull up, honk its horn, and five minutes later you were chowing down on a righteous burrito. Not anymore. Now hungry workers are forced to stalk their food truck prey via Twitter. This Web 2.0/social media/catch-me-if-you-can style of eating is exhausting. I don’t want to check my Tweet Deck to find out where you’re serving your Polish Banh Mi-style pierogies. I don’t want to search high and low for the sketchy alley you parked in next to the Segway dealership. I don’t want to work so much to eat–that’s why we go to restaurants, so we can pay someone to do the work for us. 

I live in Los Angeles, where the gourmet lonchera craze really hit its stride with the now-famous Kogi truck. It featured a delicious and brilliant combination of traditional Mexican street food and Korean barbecue. It capitalized on the burgeoning social media scene to make eating an event. People (read: hipsters) lined up for hours to devour the kimchi quesadillas that all their friends were blogging about. There was a community element to it. There was a sense that something was happening. And then, like all good things, it turned into just another way for enterprising individuals to make a quick buck. You like Kogi? Great. Now there are five Kogi trucks. You like Korean-Mexican fusion? Awesome. Enjoy the stream of Korean-Mexican imitators that cropped up, not to mention Chinese-Mexican, Indian-Mexican, and Native American-French Canadian (totally made-up, but doesn’t fry bread poutine sound amazing?). The movement became commodified and now it sucks.

I get it. Food trucks are way easier to start than restaurants. People who never had the time, money, or stamina for brick and mortar finally got the chance to have their own place, albeit one that gets eight miles to the gallon. Forget permits and inspections and health codes, just grab a truck and start driving. Sounds easy, right? Well, that’s the problem. In most places, it’s too easy. (Big cities like New York and L.A. have finally wised up and made it just as much of a regulatory headache as opening a “real” restaurant. To them I say: Nice work.) Because the barrier to entry is so low, just about anyone can operate his/her own truck and be celebrated for it. But we don’t tolerate this business model in other arenas. When the guy down the street says he has his own circus because he trained his cats to dance in his living room, we don’t all rush to support him. Although, if that circus sold fantastic Polynesian-Belgian dumplings, perhaps we would.

Okay, so maybe I’m going overboard. Food trucks aren’t all bad. Some of them have amazing food at pretty great prices. More often than not, though, they serve not-so-great food at pretty bad prices. That’s why I think it’s time for some food truck population control. I don’t know how, but we need to invent some sort of system to eliminate the poseurs and just keep the trucks that are truly dedicated to providing good food. If you come up with an idea, please let me know in the comments. Now, excuse me, but I have to go find some fry bread poutine before this afternoon’s cat circus.

Based in Los Angeles, Jason Kessler has written for television shows such as NBC’s The Office, True Jackson, VP on Nickelodeon, and The MTV Movie Awards. Photo by Matt Armendariz.

Follow him on Twitter @BANitpicker