[QUOTE=WhyNot]
I think there are two reasons - one is that people here, ultimately, don’t *want *healthful. At least, not enough to buy enough of it to support the guy with the hummus and bell pepper cart. They’ll pass him right by to go to the chili cheese dog guy.
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Also your co-workers don’t want you to have bell peppers for lunch.
[QUOTE=Rick]
We have taco wagons all over the barrios in LA. A taco wagon is either a hot lunch truck that parks in one place or a trailer that is towed to a spot and parked for several hours.
[/QUOTE]
The proper term is “Roach Coach”…
and yeah, they’re fairly common here in Texas in areas with large Hispanic concentrations.
[QUOTE=SmartAleq]
Downtown Portland has a flourishing population of street vendors selling everything from vegan burritos to Indian food to hot dogs to Chinese and Thai food to Pho to the typical junky “street food” like churros and pretzels. Add to that the mobile vendors, like the bazillion taco trucks, sandwich trucks, pizza vendors and other miscellaneous gypsy food vendors that cycle around to various locations (like Freightliner on Swan Island, which usually has 20-30 trucks parked out front during the lunch periods) during the day, with the taco trucks especially doing land office business after the bars close and I’d say we have no lack of street food here.
One of these days I’m going to buy a roach coach and run around feeding people–that’s my dream business!
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Wow. That sounds fantastic. I should think downtown Washington, D.C., would be a great place for lunch wagons. There are tons of people at lunchtime with no time to eat. Probably there are too many legal restrictions here.
[QUOTE=acsenray]
Wow. That sounds fantastic. I should think downtown Washington, D.C., would be a great place for lunch wagons. There are tons of people at lunchtime with no time to eat. Probably there are too many legal restrictions here.
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There seem to be a lot of wagons selling fast food and souvenirs on the Mall in DC. Perhaps there’s a problem with them finding parking spaces downtown.
[QUOTE=Giles]
There seem to be a lot of wagons selling fast food and souvenirs on the Mall in DC. Perhaps there’s a problem with them finding parking spaces downtown.
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There’s plenty of sidewalk space, and spaces on traffic islands and such. That’s what I mean by legal restrictions.
You can get a street meal for pennies in Calcutta becasue food in general is much cheaper there than in the US. Also 99% of foreign street food wouldn’t pass US health regulations, especially if they had to do what it took to pass regulations. And the average Calcuttan probably isn’t going to sue when he gets dysentary from eating strret vendor fish that’s been sitting in the sun all day that came from a river that people shit in, the average American would 
Indian street vendors’ food is healthy by chance, not by design. If they had a big enough cart and the right equipment, all that healthy stuff would be gone and the food being served would more than likely be fried in ghee (clarified butter).
An awful lot of Indian food is fattening and high in sodium.
[QUOTE=Pullet]
There is also a population density issue. Street vendors need a high number of folks on foot. That might work in New York or downtown Chicago, but never in Los Angeles or Houston or Sacramento, probably not in San Francisco or Honolulu either.
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SF has the densest zip codes in the US, behind NYC.
That said, it is pretty rare to find street food here. There’s the taco truck by Best Buy, the hot dog stands in the park, the bacon dog carts in the Mission, and that’s about it. Oh, and the Tamale Lady, who roves from bar to bar.
I dunno why there’s so little street food here, and I wish there were more. If nothing else, the bar areas in North Beach and the Mission could make it worthwhile.
Most of the vendors in downtown Portland are using those small portable rooms, like they bring in for overcrowded schools but smaller–mini mobile homes, I guess. The vendors lease space from a parking lot or such like and are hooked up to electricity from the nearest building. The rents are fairly low–on a decently travelled corner the vendor will pay 500-750/month or so for the space rent (numbers could be out of whack now but that’s what I found when I researched this a couple years ago.) This removes the finding a parking space issue (which is problematical in any city center!) and also gives them greater scope to expand their menus because they have more room for storage and onsite refrigeration/freezer access. Some of these vendors have lines down the street for a fair portion of the day and prices are pretty reasonable–most lunches run around the 4-8 dollar range. Some of the vendors have a couple tables set up for patrons who don’t want to walk and eat or who wish to enjoy a nice day when we have them.
There was one truck that had a permanent setup in a parking lot that served a huge office complex in Beaverton that I used to hit pretty often when I was driving delivery–they made the most amazing chicken caesar sandwiches on garlic grilled sourdough baguette imaginable. I’d drive miles outta my way to hit those guys!
I’ve often thought that setting up outside a busy bar area at closing time and making fresh donut holes would be a license to print money. There’s nothing more appealing after a night of boozing than a lovely batch of sugar, grease and dough to absorb the toxins and forestall hangovers. Well, donuts and french fries–for the sweet/savory spread…
Vegetarians probably skew heavily toward upper incomes (something that I suspect is not the case in India), and so are more willing to pay more for food. I suspect that people who are not willing to eat unhealthy food also skew toward upper income levels. If most of your customers are willing to pay $10 for the food you’re selling, you’d be insane to charge $1 for it.
One thing that I don’t think was mentioned is the weather in the US cities with enough density for walking. Aside from San Francisco (and maybe Portland OR?), almost all of the US cities with dense downtowns have long periods where it’s too cold to comfortably eat outside (for most people). So now there have to be enough indoor lunch places to feed everyone in the winter. Since there are all those restaurants, in the summer the street vendors have tougher competition.
Which isn’t to say that healthy street food is unknown. I’ve eaten some great (well, at least decent) Thai food from a roach coach in Hartford. Mobile burrito guys are a fixture in most cities I’ve been in.
[QUOTE=Quercus]
One thing that I don’t think was mentioned is the weather in the US cities with enough density for walking. Aside from San Francisco (and maybe Portland OR?), almost all of the US cities with dense downtowns have long periods where it’s too cold to comfortably eat outside (for most people). So now there have to be enough indoor lunch places to feed everyone in the winter. Since there are all those restaurants, in the summer the street vendors have tougher competition.
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Well, it doesn’t get too cold here but it does rain quite a bit–I think the major factor is time–who wants to spend their entire lunch break sitting in a restaurant when you can grab something quick from a street vendor and haul it back to the office and surf the 'net while you eat? Not to mention that there’s such a variety available that everyone can get what they want in a few minutes so there’s no haggling over where to go for lunch–meet up with friends after hitting your preferred lunch truck. Price is a consideration too; the street vendors run a few bucks cheaper per lunch than a sit down place. When the weather’s nice the fave thing is to grab vendor food and head to Waterfront park to sit on the grass and enjoy the sun. Add in the fact that all of downtown is Fareless Square, which means it’s free to ride the Max or the street car and busses and every street vendor is within easy access no matter where in downtown you work. Portlanders like to walk, too, so that’s another factor that keeps the vendors in business.
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
Indian street vendors’ food is healthy by chance, not by design. If they had a big enough cart and the right equipment, all that healthy stuff would be gone and the food being served would more than likely be fried in ghee (clarified butter).
An awful lot of Indian food is fattening and high in sodium.
[/QUOTE]
Both healthful and unhealthful foods are available on the street. The variety is there.
Berkeley has a lot of street food vendors; I used get this one really great spicy chicken avocado thing about twice a week. Mmmm. And even here we have some; there’s a taco truck around the corner, a hot dog cart by the college, and guys with carts. Oh, and a coffee shop van too. Probably none of it is healthy, but you can get some pretty good stuff at the taco truck.
A lot of US cities (particuarly with large university student populations) have street food vedors 9"roach coaches"). I don’t patronize them, for two reasons:
-the vendors have no access to running water -washing hands is very important when handling food
-inspections of these vendors are often haphazard, not on the scale of the sit down establishment
Yeah, maybe I’m paranoid…but I’d rather NOT get sick!