In the past, Street Food vending's business model was fairly straightforward: place yourself between the highest number of customers and their destinations, and offer a product that is quick and inexpensive. That business model works, but it is completely passive with no way to build brand identity, no recognition of the quality of food being served, and low levels of customer loyalty. In the old model of mobile vending, one lunch truck is as good as another; and all of them aren't really that good at all. With the help of social media this passive model of business interaction has changed into an active opportunity for mobile vendors to specialize their food styles, build large followings of actively engaged customers, and use real time updates to inform your how to find you (and how to advocate for you). If you are a new entrepreneur considering a mobile vending business, then an understanding of social media has become a job requirement.
A Brief Primer on Twitter and Social Media:
Social media is information that is intended to be quickly and easily distributed to a variety of places (customers, friends,
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This is part IV (of a five part series) leading up to, "How to Start a Mobile Food Business (Legally!!!)," a La Cocina Incubator workshop. You can read part I on Business Planning here. You can read part II on "Defining your Market" here. You can read part III on "Setting Realistic Expectations" here.
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The recent popularity of street food has, in many ways, resulted from the convergence of three different trends: Social Media, Cheap Eats and the Local Food Movement. There are over 5000 legal, licensed, mobile food vendors in Los Angeles, but who are the ones that you hear about? These guys. This isn't to say that these "gourmet" food trucks are better than their 4950 peers who don't appear on Twitter, but simply to say that these trucks have expanded the local street food market by grasping 5 basic truths for modern street food success.
Be findable:
The past model for street food success was to place yourself (or your business) between a customer and the nearest possible restaurant and offer cheaper food, then move and repeat the process in the next
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Welcome to the San Francisco Cart Project.
The @sfstreetfood twitter handle was originally intended to just be an easy way to find my aggregator project: sfstreetfood on tumblr. It was the straightforward name to choose in the beginning, and there didn't seem to be much of a conflict between @streetfoodsf's feed and my own. Since then there has been confusion, and its time to end the question of: Who is @sfstreetfood and who is @streetfoodsf? It was never intended to be this confusing and I appreciate Caleb's patience and good humor.
The aspiration of this SF Cart Project site is to be home to the largest resource of mobile vending guidelines, resources, and code(State and Municipal) anywhere. It is also a way for Mobile Vendors to find services that they might have had trouble locating in the past. Of course, its brand new, and a work in progress. But if you have questions, suggestions, or comments please feel free to contact me at matt(at)sfcartproject.com.
But, you can't do anything without a new name, so please help me out: vote! If you include your twitter handle, I'll get in touch and send a randomly selected person a prize
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