Street Food Grows Up

The food truck craze is taking off like crazy. We can all agree on that. When I first discovered Food Trucks on @Twitter I thought I had discovered something new. Well I was wrong. The concept has been around for many years. Taco carts, fruit, ice cream, bread, etc. Think about it, no matter how old you are you have seen them since you were a child. What's new is they have grown up, like we all have. They are now run by Chefs that were trained in culinary schools and have left restaurants that have closed due to the recession. What's new, is they are creating blends of different foods (fusions). The mix of flavors are just out of this world. 

I believe without social networking, web enabled cell phones (iPhone, Blackberry, Droid, etc.) and laptops with cellular cards, we wouldn't be seeing the explosive growth of this industry. But remember, if you live by technology you can die from technology. Here is what I mean. It's not enough to have a clean truck and good food, you need to have a web page, Facebook Fan page, Twitter account and mobile device to stay in touch, and you need to know when to use them and how to use them. There are many so called experts out there that can help, if you think you need it. 

I think it's simple to stay connected to your target base. Re-tweet your follows when they say something good about you, and even more importantly, tweet them back when they are not happy or dissatisfied. You can die from a few well read and re-tweeted complaints. If you don't believe me see what happened to the movie industry. Some movies no longer have premiers because the buzz from social networking can kill them before it's released. The Twitter & Facebook crowd has more influence than so called movie or food critics. I have been in restaurants where I have sent a tweet about poor food and got a response in minutes asking me to see the manager and they would make it right. That is awesome customer service. I went back, and I would have never set foot in that restaurant again if they hadn't been paying attention. I tried to go to a food truck in LA a few weeks ago, they said via Facebook and Twitter they would be there till 2:00 but at 1:30 when I got there they were gone. I spoke out on both Facebook and Twitter and that night they apologized and offered a free item if I would try them again. I did try them and it was worth it. 


Gourmet Food Trucks are here to stay, as long as we support them by not only buying there great food but also speaking out when cities and politicians try and stop them. 


More on that with our next blog.
Thank you for reading my rants.
Dan @GourmetFoodTrk