Key Details-
Off the Grid: St. Mary’s Square
Soft Launch Date: Monday July 25, 2011
Official Opening: Monday August 1, 2011
Times: 11am-2pm Weekly
Number of Trucks: 4 Weekly
Location: Parking available immediately below the park in the Saint Mary’s Square Parking Garage off California Street.

Participating Vendors Include:
Hapa SF
3 Sum Eats
The Rib Whip
Senor Sisig
Toasty Melts
Fins on the Hoof
… and more.

Up to Date Event Information Available At:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/OffTheGridSF
Twitter: @sfcarts

(San Francisco—Tuesday July 19, 2011)
Off the Grid: San Francisco is proud to announce the launch of “Off the Grid: Saint Mary’s Square,” located in San Francisco’s Financial District in the beautiful Saint Mary’s Square Park. Off the Grid: Saint Mary’s Square will feature vendors from all over the Bay Area (4 each week) serving Mondays from 11am-2pm.

Off the Grid: Saint Mary’s Square is a project created in partnership with the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The market continues Off the Grid’s commitment to bring value priced, local, artisanal food experiences to people-oriented public spaces where locals and visitors love to live, work, and play. Off the Grid is proud of its experience with creating excitement around, and opportunities for, local economies and small businesses and is thrilled to be able to locate in Saint Mary’s Square. Off the Grid: Saint Mary’s Square marks Off the Grid: San Francisco’s first location in San Francisco’s Financial District.

Off the Grid: Saint Mary’s Square will feature a rotating list of the Bay Area’s best traditional and nouveau Street Food vendors, including:

- 3-Sum Eats
- The Rib Whip
- Toasty Melts
- Fins on the Hoof
- Brass Knuckle
… and More.

For more details on Off the Grid: Saint Mary’s Square please follow us on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/offthegridsf.
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ABOUT OFF THE GRID: SAN FRANCISCO:
Off the Grid: San Francisco is an event management company whose goal is the establishment of gourmet mobile food markets throughout the Bay Area. Off the Grid runs the successful “Off the Grid: Fort Mason Center,” “Off the Grid: Upper Haight,” and “Off the Grid: Civic Center” Street Food markets, and actively works with non-profits, small entrepreneurs, and municipal governments to support increased street vending in urban areas. Each Off the Grid market seeks to serve delicious food, and assist in formalizing spaces for mobile entrepreneurs to operate legally and safely in order to be able to positively contribute to the communities they serve.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Matthew Cohen-
Founder, Off the Grid: San Francisco
415-425-8444, matt@offthegridsf.com

Connie Chan-
Deputy Director of Public Affairs,
San Francisco Recreation and Park
Phone: 415.831.2796
Connie.Chan@sfgov.org

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, publications) on a variety of platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, LinkedIn, or Flickr) from a variety of access points (phones, email, websites, text messages). This can happen in a number of ways, but for the mobile vendor the first step starts with Twitter. Twitter is a short message system (140 characters or less) that allows users to send and receive information in real time from a very select group of people who share common interests. In the case of Mobile Vending, Twitter is extremely effective at allowing vendors to send basic information regarding their service hours, specials, weather complications, new locations, and promotions directly to your customers. In addition, you can use Twitter to communicate with your peers to solve problems, gain crossover customers through their networks and promote each other. Think of Twitter as you PR billboard to the world that only your customers can selectively see; it bothers nobody and turns your customers into committed evangelical users for your product or service. For the rest of this article, I will use Twitter (for more on how twitter works click here) as a basic social media example, although your own website, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, YouTube and Flickr are all examples of additional social media services that could be part of your social media strategy.

7+ Essentials For integrating Social Media into Your Mobile Business:

1) Treat it with Respect
There has been an inclination within large organizations (struggling to find a way to use Twitter) to relegate responsibility for its Tweets to relatively low level employees within an organization; its far more likely for an intern to tweet than owners or “C” level company officers of large businesses. The resulting Twitter streams were not compelling and tended to be bland and uninformative. It has therefore been rather interesting to have a broad variety of publications take note of the way that mobile vendors use social media to grow their customer base and expand their brands. One of the key distinctions that separates an effective mobile vending business’ tweeter feed and their less effective corporate peer is that mobile businesses are generally small operations where the individuals who are sending out information live and breathe their products because they own it and sell their core message to their customers everyday. You can feel and recognize their understanding of their products and business information that they send out into the world. And, its that same tone that resonates with customers when they reach that business and make a purchase. Twitter (and effective social media usage) facilitates authentic communication between businesses owners and customers; an experience that makes customers loyal and vocal in their support.

2) Define your Voice
Within every worthwhile business plan should be some type of statement of values that should serve to define the services and products offered at a business, and the style and priorities associated with the growth of that business in the future. These values should reasonably extend into your marketing plan where you detail what type of relationship that you want to have with your customers, and the way that you want your customers to perceive their experience while engaging in their purchase. Are you clean, sterile and detailed like you’d want at a doctor’s office? Or are you warm, welcoming and outgoing like you’d want at your favorite local watering hole. Are you cheeky and fun? These are active choices that you should make, rather than not thinking about them at all. More often than not, street food vendors are passionate about their food, their products and the values around what they do. That passion comes through online, and it comes through the voice of the people in the organization. Make sure that what you are saying online is consistent with the core values of your organization as a whole and remember that the information that you post reflects your business, not you, and some things are better left unsaid.

3. Post Regularly, Stay Consistent and Don’t Forget the Basics
Once you have decided on an approach for how you will interact with the world through social media its important to stick with a schedule that is realistic and consistent. It may be great to start off posting 30 times a day with lots of information, but if you stop posting after a month that effort will have been wasted, and you’ll have established unreasonable expectations for your customers. Basic information is essential: Service times, street addresses and city names, daily menu options, specials, vehicle problems and weather updates. Learn how to post from a cell phone (you don’t need a 300$ smart phone to do this) and make sure that the information you post is accurate. If you leave a location early because its slow, don’t just assume that no one is on their way, post the information so that you don’t lose a customer who makes the effort to get to you.

4. Engage your audience (and encourage them to advocate for you).
How will you know if you’re connecting with your customers and your social media strategy is working? Ask them. The beauty of social media is that it places you in direct contact with your actual customers. By asking them what they find useful, what they’d appreciate done differently, and how you can improve you’ll not only become more relevant, but you’ll also build customer loyalty. An important part of social media is to acknowledge that you aren’t shouting into nothing, you are speaking to the people who keep you in business and have (increasingly) more and more power to voice their opinions in forums where other people will take them seriously. Through being responsive to your audience you’ll be able to demonstrate your command of your business area, as well as influence the far larger number people who are passive consumers of information who pay attention to the subjects that they care about. That is the way that you grow your audience and find true value with social media.

5. Time Shift
The fact is that you are busy, especially if you run a one or two person operation. You may say to yourself that you simply don’t have the time or energy to do this “social media” thing. But here’s a secret: You don’t need to be online all day long to use these tools. There some very easy methods of time shifting your posts so that you can write non time relevant information one time a day, or a week (such as menu, industry, or cuisine information) so you don’t have to worry about it when you are in the middle of prep or service. By combining this type of posting with real time updates for when you move to different locations, or want to encourage people to come out, you can shift the time burden of social media to something very manageable.

6. Integrate with Different Types of Media Sources
Your time is valuable and you want to make the most of it. One of the most valuable aspects of social media is its ability to update other platforms that can also build an audience and encourage customer participation in your brand. If you link your Tweets to your Facebook Fan Page, your fans can ask you questions and engage in dialogue with each other. There are many variations of how you can take advantage of this, but the important part is that the more platforms where your business is represented the more that you can let the service work for you. More and more search results from Google and other companies are incorporating social media into their top search results. In addition, most of the major social media companies pay a great deal of money to smart computer engineers so that their websites appear high in search results. By taking advantage of multiple platforms, not only are you better able to leverage this for your company, but you also cast the widest net possible for customers looking for your products and services. The key is having accurate and clear information where ever your customers go about how to find you, and what you serve.

7. Reflect
If you’ve given social media a shot and its not working for you, don’t be afraid to reevaluate what you are doing for better ways to achieve results from your efforts. Ask yourself for concrete details associated with practical results from your social media strategy and write them down. Set goals, and timelines for reviewing those goals with people who will hold your accountable to your results. Its important to look at social media as being a Swiss Army Knife of many different tools, where a one size fits all approach rarely works. Geographic needs, local preferences, and established habits will all affect how you and your customers take advantage of social media. Stay realistic about your expectations and understand that 500 committed customer/followers are far more valuable to your business than 5000 casual webpage visits. By keeping your goals realistic, you’ll be able to chart your own path to meaningful value with these tools.

A Last Thought: Be Patient
When starting to use social media to reach your audience it’s about adding long term value to your company. Using social media takes resolve and consistent use that will take time to establish. Remember, there are millions of people out there all talking about something. The more refined, clear and consistent your message is, the more easily your target audience will be able to locate you.

With that in mind here are some themes that might variously (and wrongly) be called “the death of the street food trend” in 2010.

1) Restaurateurs getting into the game:
Right now it costs between $8,000 and $110,000 dollars to start a mobile food business in California (you can get into it for less in other states). Even at the top end, a would be restaurateur would be hard pressed to get into a finished brick and mortar location for less than double that $100,000. Because of that, it makes sense that established industry folks would be interested in Street Food. So, why no big push?

The economics of Street Food work extremely well for supporting an owner operated cart (or truck). You can make a decent living if you serve good food and know how to take advantage of emerging tastes and trends. But scaling street food to multiple trucks, or multiple styles, is unproven because of labor costs, high capital requirements for kitchens and equipment and high variation in city and state laws governing this area. So, if a major restaurateur gets into street food, people may say that the trend is dead, but I say that will be when the area is going to get really exciting. Once someone figures out home to make real money through scaling mobile cuisine is when a lot of professional chefs that have been on the fence will know that they can have a road map to success that doesn’t include them working on the grill every day for the rest of their lives.

2) The Rise of Brick and Mortar Solidarity:
There is no doubt that friction is going to happen. There is already friction when a new restaurant opens on a street with an existing restaurant there. Competition in the food business is fierce, and it is true that carts operate with less overhead than their fixed fixed location peers. Restaurants are already an existing tax base, and it is easy to legislate away legal mobile food businesses, so why would the rise of trade groups be a boon for Street Food? Two Reasons: 1) It will force brick and mortar restaurants to focus on what separates them from their street food cousins; more complex cooking techniques, relaxed atmospheres, accessible bathrooms, and ability to compliment a meal with alcohol are just a few. Will there be some pressure for restaurants in the middle? Sure. But isn’t there already? 2) Trade groups would be wise to see that Street Food vendors are their future customers and members. It is to their benefit to learn how to work with these entrepreneurs, and failure to do so is at their peril.

3) Health Code Enforcement:
Renegade street food exists because it is so expensive to open a legal business. Some might see increased Health Code enforcement as the end of proper street food, but the reality is that stepped up enforcement can only happen with increased flexibility in regard to cart standards and construction costs. If that happens it will facilitate a streamlined process that will allow for significant expansion of the mobile catering market. If it doesn’t, the enforcement will cause a wide variety of interests to coalesce around a political solution to righting enforcement wrongs. And, when political blow back is involved, I pity the incumbents that stand in the way of progress. Either way, stepped up enforcement means a better, safer, more professional long term street food movement.

4) A Better Economy:
It might have been a poor economy that contributed to foodies discovering and starting unique street food in 2009, but those same pressures don’t simply go away when there’s more money in your pocket. Street Food serves a need for low priced, close proximity food. Those market forces won’t change, and neither will the start-up costs required to open a brick and mortar restaurant. If anything, a better economy might free up capital enough to allow professional chefs to more easily go it alone without significant investment from outside sources and open their own street food business. A better economy might mean that expensive wine starts moving again, but it doesn’t mean that the world is going to slow down. Thats street foods’ true niche.

5) Old School vs. New School Street Food Friction:
One of the lost stories of this year’s street food boom has been the large amount of street food vendors who have long been quietly working in this industry. Some produce great food, others produce less consistent food, but they do represent a group of people who have very few resources and work very hard to earn (barely) a living wage. As the barriers of out of date municipal regulations are removed around the country, there is going to be friction as strong vendors are separated by the quality of the goods that they sell rather than arbitrary limits on proximity between vendors. This friction doesn’t mean the end of the old school street food, but it could spell the end of the old way of operating; which is a win for customers who want quality and diversity of choices.

So cheers Street Food Vendors to a successful 2009. 2010 is going to be even better and don’t let anyone tell you any different.