August 14, 2012:
Food Trucks Bring Moveable Feasts to Boulder County
Heirloom food truck sources its menu from local farms.
A line five people deep leads up to the olive green Heirloom food truck at the edge of the Longmont Farmers’ Market, but the wait is well worth it. Chef John Campbell is serving lamb sliders with curried onion jam, Muenster cheese, sweet potato crisps, and a light medley of greens tucked between a fresh bun. They are an exquisite treat of textures both crisp and soft. A sign on the side of the truck lists the local farms where Campbell buys his ingredients. Today he is serving produce from Ollin Farms, Hazel Dell, and Aspen Moon; duck eggs from Jodar Farm; goat cheese and market greens from Haystack Mountain, and granola from Indian Ridge.
“May I still order from your breakfast menu?” a mid-30s woman with short tousled hair in a brown t-shirt and khakis asks Campbell who is inside the truck. She’d had breakfast there earlier, and had now circled back to the food truck. “No, sorry,” he says. “We sold out of eggs this morning.” With no eggs left to prepare today’s breakfast menu items, the woman walks past the back of the truck on her way to the parking lot and as she passes by the open door of Campbell’s truck, says “I’m going to stalk you guys from now on. That was delicious.”
Heirloom used ingredients from these farms one recent Saturday at the market.
Campbell, a chef who worked at Restaurant Nora’s in Washington DC, known for its local sourcing, jumped in feet first to the food truck trend last year when he invested his retirement savings to fund the Heirloom Food Truck. Campbell may park his truck at the Longmont Farmer’s Market only because he serves ingredients from local growers. “I like to say I’m farm to truck,” he quips. Heirloom was featured as “vender of the week” this past May on the Boulder County Farmer’s market web site.
County regulations slow down trend
Food Truck lovers may have visited Heirloom, enjoyed a muffin from The Tasterie, or chased the hot pink Comida Taco Truck some time this past year. The mobile food trend is on the rise throughout the country and it’s come to Colorado, too. There’s a thriving food truck community in Denver, and now you can enjoy food trucks in Boulder County, where to date, there are 11 licensed trucks.
Food trucks are considered a relatively affordable entry into the food service industry. The overhead is less than brick and mortar—for example, some estimates suggest that it costs an average of $500,000 to open a restaurant when there’s no land purchase, whereas it can cost $100,000 to open a food truck—and it’s a great way to build a client base. Food truck chefs may prepare food in their trucks, as long as they are outfitted and licensed for that use, but some prepare their food in a licensed kitchen, and then transfer the food to the truck for selling. The Comida Taco food truck was licensed to cook on the truck, and the food became so popular, that owner Rayme Rosello expanded to a Longmont-based restaurant this past winter. She also recently announced that she’ll be opening a second Comida restaurant by February or March 2013 in The Source, an indoor artisan market in Denver’s River North neighborhood.
Rosello is a bit of a truck star among her colleagues. “Rayme with Comida, she got it started and made this thing work,” says Campbell, of operating food trucks in and near Boulder. Comida was voted “Best Food Truck” by Best of Boulder 2012, an annual competition sponsored by the Daily Camera and her truck is sought out for parties. Rosello is widely seen as the person who pioneered licensing in the city of Boulder, a place that has been slow to let the trucks roam freely.
Rayme Rosello in her hot pink Comida food truck.
She owned five different restaurants, including Protos Pizzeria Napoletana, before starting her Comida food truck. She didn’t realize until after she bought and fashioned her feisty pink vehicle, that food trucks were not allowed within Boulder city limits. There had been an online mobile vending permit packet that she downloaded from the city, and at first that seemed to indicate that mobile vending was OK. But when Rosello went in to register her food truck business in Boulder, there wasn’t any permit for her to secure. “I grew up in New York City where there were lots of food trucks, so I naively assumed I would be able to open up a food truck in Boulder and go downtown to sell,” she says.
Thus began an arduous process of getting the go-ahead from the Boulder City Council to allow food trucks to operate in the city of Boulder. Rosello worked with the city for about a year to develop licensing standards and in the meantime other food truck companies joined her quest. During that time they were able to operate in Boulder County, but not within the city of Boulder. This made it tough to sustain their businesses that first year, says Campbell. Finally, the Boulder City Council passed an ordinance in May of 2011 allowing the trucks to operate on public and private lands with caveats.
The ordinance says the food trucks may set up shop between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on private property with permission from the property owner in industrial, business, and mixed-use, such as office parks, and private downtown areas zoned for business. They may also set up in public rights-of-way in industrial zones, or as part of an organized special event, such as Boulder Green Streets or the Boulder Creek Festival. They can’t be closer than 200 feet to each other while on public property, and they must stay 150 feet from residential areas and brick-and-mortar restaurants.
Food trucks aren’t popular among many restaurant owners, because they’re perceived to have a financial advantage due to lower overhead and they can move to wherever there is a crowd of hungry people, according to a study by the food industry market research company Technomic. But food trucks primarily compete with quick service restaurants, and less with traditional sit-down restaurants, says the study. This means a food truck could be a choice over a meal from a fast-food restaurant such as a hamburger drive through, but not a choice if you are instead looking to enjoy a meal at a sit-down restaurant, such as those on Pearl Street Mall.
Despite this, Rosello had trouble when she parked her food truck near Pearl Street in her early days in business. “I went downtown with the truck, and was asked to never come back,” she says. “A couple of restaurants called the city on me.” One restaurant was a pizza place, the other a bakery.
Dealing with city regulations is a common growth challenge for food trucks, according to the Technomic study. In fact, many food truck operators say the Boulder city restrictions make business too difficult, and this spring asked the city council to consider changing the regulations. So far no changes have been made and the venders have started a petition to garner consumer support.
Yummy treats from The Tasterie food truck.
Efforts to blaze ahead into new territory
Food truck owners have found innovative ways to stand out to people looking for fun and a good meal. Some have started hosting events where they may show up together and offer meals, music, and sometimes trucks licensed to serve alcohol. For example, there’s a regular Monday night event in Longmont’s Prospect community that’s become a weekly party for community members who bring their friends and children to eat dinner, visit with each other, and listen to music. Restrictions in cities such as Longmont have been easier to manage. The Monday night Prospect gathering can happen because the food trucks are able to pull a permit for each event throughout the summer, says Rosello.
A group of food truckers expanded this idea to Boulder in early June. “Truck It! Boulder”, a food truck party, was held Friday June 8 at Gateway Park which is private property in North Boulder with music spun by DJ Zach Johnson, and the event was wildly popular, drawing a crowd of more than 1,000 people. Tasterie Truck, Heirloom, RollinGreens, Comida, Verde Food Truck, Top of the Hill Grill West, Street Eats and Blackbelly Catering offered food, while Avery and Upslope offered beer. These gatherings have been modeled in part after similar gatherings in Denver. For example, the Food Truck Renegades hosted a party last May at 9th and Bannock. These parties, often held on private land, help the food trucks circumnavigate stringent rules, especially within the city of Boulder.
Other food truckers are following Campbell’s lead to entice eaters by using ingredients from local growers. Though this creates a jump in cost that is inconsistent with what you expect to pay for food from a food truck. Some trucks, such as Heirloom, offer gourmet foods sourced locally that people expect to pay more for, such as the lamb slider, which recently cost $5 for a fairly small, yet satisfying, bite. “The margins on a $3 taco are not great,” says Rosello. “All of our food is healthy and hand made. While there may be a value to source local, it’s harder to make the numbers work.”
Despite how tricky it can be to navigate regulations and operating costs, the biggest growth challenge for food trucks according to the same study, is convincing people to try them. Once they do, they’re usually hooked. Most people stumble across the food trucks through serendipity, though you can chase them around the county by logging onto their web sites, Facebook pages, or Twitter feeds to find out where each has set up for the day.
Find Boulder County Food Trucks
Comida: eatcomida.com
Fruta Juice: frutajuicetruck.com
Giggling Greek Kiosk and Catering: gigglinggreek.com
Go Purple Bus: gopurplebus.com
Heirloom: heirloomtruck.com
RollinGreens: rollingreens.com
Scottish Fish Fry: They’re licensed, but we couldn’t find them online!
Sweet Cow: sweetcowicecream.com (licensed as an ice cream truck)
The Tasterie Truck: thetasterietruck.com
Top of the Hill Grill West: on.fb.me/yiBLcC
The Wandering Cow thewanderingcow.com
Verde Food Truck: verdefoodtruck.com
Oskar Blues Bonewagon: oskarblues.com
SaltBox Street Food & Catering: saltboxfood.com
Or, use the Local Food Shift directory.
