The food truck trend should be expanding in Dallas soon. Madison Partners is applying with the city for the permits required to set up a park for food trailers along two blocks of Greenville Avenue. Trucks would run roughly from Daddy Jack’s north to the Dodie’s strip center.
While the company hopes to get the food park up and running by the end of this year, mobile food vendors are thriving in other locales, such as Bryan-College Station. According to a recent story in the Bryan/College Station Eagle, the Brazos County Health Department has issued 31 permits for food vendors that are similar to restaurant permits in their standards and requirements for operation.
One argument for the Greenville Avenue food trailer park is much lower operation costs for small businesses. Mobile restaurants can run on $50,000 to $100,000, while it could cost half a million dollars to build a restaurant, according to the Eagle article. Because food trucks don’t have the costs associated with a standing restaurant, they can promote entrepreneurship in a tough economy.
Not to mention that lower overhead costs can translate to lower prices for customers. Chef Tai’s Mobile Gourmet serves everything from tacos and burritos to Korean BBQ short ribs throughout the streets of Bryan and College Station. Chef Tai Lee, also the executive chef at Bryan-College-Station’s Veritas Wine & Bistro, says he is able to charge 15 percent less for his menu items when they’re sold out of his truck, and that the truck attracts customers who might not frequent his restaurant, giving him a chance to promote his gourmet food at lower prices.
