KPLU Local News
(2010-08-02)
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Skillet is one of several mobile food vendors that could benefit from new rules that the Seattle City Council will soon consider.
Photo by: Charla Bear / KPLU
Customers are hungry for the idea. But some restaurant owners say street food messes up their business.
Jeanne Allen likes to chase down her food, at least when it comes to lunch from Skillet. The silver Airsream trailer slings upscale street food in a different neighborhood everyday.
"Some people I work with and I refer to ourselves as Skilletheads," she says. "We'll come and we'll find it and follow it whenever we can. So, actually my boss is on his way here from Redmond to Ballard with his family to get some Skillet."
She says the grass-fed burgers smothered with French cheese and arugula are worth it.
She's not alone. At least two dozen people stand in line or mill around retail shops while they wait for their food.
Gary Johnson, with the city's Planning and Development Department, wants to see more scenes like this in Seattle.
"Street food can add to making a neighborhood more of a destination," he says. "(It) increases vitality, color, a festive atmosphere, to make our streetscape places where people are going to want to be."
Johnson recently held a public forum to explain a new initiative that's headed for the city council. It would ease restrictions on street food put in place in the 1980s.
Right now, carts on the sidewalk are only allowed to sell a few things - coffee, hot dogs or popcorn. Trucks can serve just about anything, but they have to do it on private property.
Some people think the city needs to make food vendors clean up their act first.
"They present a real problem and the people they draw," says Bruce Cowan, a retail and restaurant landlord in Belltown. "And usually it's the mess they make. We've had some hot dogs and mustard thrown against the retail windows."
Some brick and mortar restaurant owners worry that mobile food will swoop into their neighborhoods and steal customers.
Johnson says the city council will address any concerns when it considers the new legislation. It could take up the measure this fall.
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