Food Trucks in Jax: DVI Board Votes No

[John P]

Of course Dvi isnt going to approve bunches of food trucks to compete with exiting businesses. Would the San marco merchants association, 5 points business association, Park & king business association, or the St. Johns town center? Hell no they would not. Every dollar I spend at a food truck isnt spent at Zodiac grill or Chicago pizza or what ever. Parking issues are have been documented on Metrojacksonville so I dont see anyone driving in from Riverside, San marco, or Beach blvd to eat at food truck either. What am I missing?

[WmNussbaum]

Where exactly would food trucks park during normal business hours? Our downtown streets aren't exactly wide enough to accommodate many such trucks during the day without creating a good bit of congestion.  Those trucks won't want to be downtown after the work day because as things are now there are no potential customers then.

If you're going to get downtown going, permanent businesses are needed - restaurants, for instance, and what restaurants are going to be attracted to open if they have to compete with vendors with a much lesser overhead? And maybe just a few feet away? I assume each truck must have a food service permit and be subject to Health Dept. inspections, but I suspect they only have to have one business license. A business that has two brick and mortar locations must have a license for each location. Could food trucks be required to have a license for each location they use?

I looked up the directors of DVI and a great number are not with businesses that would compete with food trucks, and a good number aren't even in any sort of retail sales activity. 

[WmNussbaum]

Maybe the City could devote some Hemming Plaza space for a couple of trucks and assign them on a rotating basis. That would get the trucks off the street and make Hemming attractive to a more desirable element.

[tpot]

I'm so glad I left this backwards town years ago........this place seems to take steps back instead of forward......

[John P]

Stephen. No they dont do it all the time. Ive been part of business asscoiations and they do it on special occasions like you described in San marco. Dvi also approved it for special occasions, late nights and a 1x month food truck event. Listen im all for food truck events like at Bold city brewery where its not hurting existing businesses but if your competeing with traditional restauarnts in the same area in a WEAK market then thats not positive. Your arrgument ONLY works if the food trucks bring in bunches of people to downtown who would not have come.

[mtraininjax]

The real complaint about the trucks downtown from the restaurants is the fact that JEDC has a special tax on downtown cafes.  If they want to serve food on the sidewalk, they have to pay JEDC 150 dollars a year for the pleasure, not to mention that they also have to pay a special tax to DVI that no one else in the city has to pay.

Excellent stuff Stephen, like I said earlier, follow the money. Its really all about money, you pay your license, you get to play in the downtown area like anyone else.

What someone from MetroJax should do is go to as many of the food trucks, this weekend, and then work to represent them and their wishes to the DVI board to get the issue resolved. I sense these truck vendors need some organization or someone to be their voice. Any takers out here?

[blandman]

Where exactly would food trucks park during normal business hours? Our downtown streets aren't exactly wide enough to accommodate many such trucks during the day without creating a good bit of congestion.  Those trucks won't want to be downtown after the work day because as things are now there are no potential customers then.

If you're going to get downtown going, permanent businesses are needed - restaurants, for instance, and what restaurants are going to be attracted to open if they have to compete with vendors with a much lesser overhead? And maybe just a few feet away?

DT streets are plenty wide enough. I'd bet they're as wide or wider than most cities that have them.  Philly's are narrower and much more congested.  And who says a food truck can't be a permanent business?  The cafe on the corner (hypothetical) is only open from 8am-5pm.  What do I care if it flies away or sinks into the ground when I'm not a patron?  If the same food truck is parked on the corner every Mon-Fri, it's permanent to me.  And what restaurant doesn't want competition?  Why are there no Starbucks downtown?  Would you rather open a sandwhich shop next to a very popular burrito stand/fruit truck/caribbean jerk chicken shack or next to an empty surface lot/row of empty store fronts?  Doesn't make sense to me.

[simms3]

So this is all over a $150 fee?  That's nominal.  The food trucks should just suck it up and pay, but I can't possibly be led to believe that all 8 food trucks refuse to pay a $150 licensing fee to serve food on sidewalks.

Arguably shopping centers have the most tricky merchants' parameters when anchors are involved, and yet shopping center owners have found ways to amendably come to terms with the anchor(s) and the small shops in terms of arranging mobile vendor events.

And regarding space - in an urban design class I took in college we examined American downtowns one day, and Jacksonville had the highest percentage of surface parking lots and vacant lots of any major city downtown.  There is plenty o' land to put these things.  Just go to Google Maps, close your eyes, and point to the screen - that's one place they could go.

I know in my neighborhood there are two designated areas they go - one is a parking lot directly owned by a performing arts center.  The other is a surface lot owned by Daniel, which is currently putting up its fourth tower in the same development and will be filled with more restaurants.  Within one block of that lot which Daniel owns are 6 restaurants on the ground floor of other DANIEL owned buildings - STK Steak, Cucina Asellina, Piola, Ra, Ri Ra, and soon to be Cafe Intermezzo.  Not to mention all of the other restaurants in buildings not owned by Daniel, but owned by members of the Midtown Alliance.  The arrangement was made successfully and I don't remember much of a backlash (though there was discussion years ago).

There is no reason Jacksonville can't do this.  Perhaps DVI restaurants and landlords are already feeling the pinch from the general lack of office workers and residents downtown, and so they feel there really is not room for both mobile vendors and permanent restaurants.  In that case, the deeper issue needs to be addressed and soon.

[John P]

Perhaps DVI restaurants and landlords are already feeling the pinch from the general lack of office workers and residents downtown, and so they feel there really is not room for both mobile vendors and permanent restaurants.  In that case, the deeper issue needs to be addressed and soon.

Ya think? Careful with that kind of talk  simms3 or youll be labled a fool by the clearly superior ones.

[Tacachale]

^No, the issue is that the bricks-and-mortar places have to pay a $150 fee to have sidewalk seating, plus pay the DVI self-tax. I think the point is that they don't like the idea that a food truck could come in and not have to pay.

Seems like an easy solution would be to just find reasonable rules that bind, or don't bind, everyone.

[simms3]

I'll see if I can find the arrangement details up here, but since the food trucks commonly park on a major developer's private lot, I wonder if what they pay is a pass-through to the developer or paid directly to the Alliance.  I do know the developer, though not from the city, holds a lot of sway in Midtown Alliance due to their local neighborhood investments worth well over a billion dollars in the past decade alone.  This lot also serves as valet parking for STK, a NYC-based restaurant on the ground floor of the office tower component, just to show the dynamic here.

One thing that must be noted is that in the case of food trucks on this particular lot, they are "competing" with restaurants who do volumes similar or maybe even higher in scope than the restaurants at SJTC, but these restaurants are also paying rents that are the among the highest in the south (well, outside of South Beach - they are paying higher retail/restaurant rents than you would find in Brickell for instance).  It's still difficult to get retailers into Midtown, but restaurants do so well they can afford the high land costs and pay rents anywhere from $35 to $65 depending on the site, parking and foot traffic.

The dynamic is different in terms of "competition" between businesses here, but the way the deal is structured to actually have the food trucks might be something Jacksonville can cue from.  Are there any local developers just sitting on empty land waiting to eventually be developed?  Who for instance owns all of the vacant lots?  It won't be the office tower landlords, but maybe the Atkins guy owns something?

[WmNussbaum]

DT streets are plenty wide enough.

That's hogwash unless you eliminate metered parking places, loading zones, other no parking zones, etc. Bay Street and Broad Street may be more than two traffic lanes wide, but I can't think of another one in the core area where most of the workers are. Not Forsyth, Adams, Monroe, Duval, Julia, Hogan (barely two lanes), or Laura.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

This whole - nowhere to put them - is the weakest excuse I've ever heard.

[Anti redneck]

I call for MetroJacksonville to create their own mobile truck and sell strictly bottled water (This still qualify for food industry regulation, etc.) We can have MetroJacksonville drive around and BREAK the laws, and continue to break the laws to boycott and protest against the city.

Who's in with me!?

-Josh

I'll support it! I'm sick of these bigots doing everything they can to keep from Jacksonville thriving. It's almost like they hate things that make a city look alive, or hate Jacksonville for that matter!

[WmNussbaum]

I am not opposed to food trucks, but tell me where you would have them park - specifics, please - name of street and between what two intersecting streets.