On most summer nights, you can find Ross Yannecy slinging burgers and tacos on Burlington’s College Street.
His big black-and-white food truck, Fast Food Good Food, is hard to miss. It’s festooned with multicolored neon lights inside and out, and music plays through big speakers affixed to one side. Yannecy operates his greasy spoon on wheels from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. in front of Finnigan’s Pub, a prominent spot not far from pedestrian-packed Church Street. His is one of two trucks permitted to operate downtown.
While pub-crawlers go for Yannecy’s grub, others are less keen on mobile kitchens like his. Critics claim the trucks benefit from doing business at a lower cost, which puts the 100 or so other downtown eateries at a competitive disadvantage.
“You have brick-and-mortar restaurants open 12 months a year,” Church Street Marketplace Commission chair Jeff Nick said. “For a food truck to come in and pick and choose the prime times and then leave doesn’t seem very fair.”
Although it is not unique to Burlington — Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Boston are engaged in similar food fights — the conflict is heating up here. Just last week, the Burlington City Council passed a resolution creating a committee that could consider adding more food trucks downtown, where their presence is limited. The group is tasked with examining the current rules — and potentially adding new ones — to protect traditional food vendors.
And there’s plenty of interest from would-be rolling restaurants. The city clerk’s office, which administers peddling licenses, hears frequent requests, according to administrative assistant Christine Dunbar, who said, “I have to tell them no.”
“They want reasons why,” she told the city council’s license committee last month. “They want answers.”
The city’s peddling ordinance does provide an explanation. Since 1995, the rule book had allowed just two food trucks in Burlington’s “central peddling district,” which comprises the area within Main, Battery, Pearl and South Union streets — but not on the Church Street Marketplace or near City Hall Park.
A general peddling permit gives more range, allowing food-trucking anywhere except the central district or near city parks and beaches. A general license costs $100 a year, while a central one costs $300. Each of the seven spots on University Place, by the University of Vermont, goes for $400, Dunbar said. The city allows 16 carts — that sell food and other goods — to operate on Church Street at a fee that ranges from $600 to $2,400 annually.
That’s peanuts compared to the thousands of dollars tenants pay in rent each month. Commercial property owners pay taxes on 120 percent of their building’s assessed value, according to the city’s Chief Financial Officer Beth Anderson. If they’re on Church Street, they also owe an extra fee to the Marketplace.
Both peddlers and restaurants pay a tax on gross receipts.
That’s little comfort to Tom and Deb Miller, who’ve owned Ken’s Pizza and Pub on Church Street for 45 years. They were two of a handful of business owners who appeared at the June 5 license committee work session to plead with councilors to uphold food truck limits downtown.
“For a food truck to come in and pick and choose the prime times and then leave doesn’t seem very fair.” Jeff Nick
The couple said ArtsRiot’s weekly truck stop on Pine Street, now five years in, has decimated their Friday night crowds. Like many other restaurants, Ken’s struggles to draw customers during Vermont’s long, cruel winters, and it’s hard to catch up in summer when food trucks can just pull up and take the business, the Millers said.
“If you let food trucks in, you’ll see a lot of businesses go out,” Deb Miller said. “There’s plenty of places for them to go and make money.”
Leunig’s Bistro & Café co-owner Bob Conlon told the committee that if food trucks are allowed, they should pay an equivalent cost of doing business downtown. Kountry Kart Deli owner Mike Williams agreed, admitting he felt slightly hypocritical since he started as a cart back in the day.
Those cart owners feel the pain, too. Sandi Pasagic, owner of Church Street Cheesesteaks, said food trucks are a nuisance with their loud generators and noxious exhaust. He complained that Fast Food Good Food has co-opted every cart’s menu while saving hundreds of dollars in fees.
Marketplace rules dictate that carts can only be 32 square feet in size, limiting them to about four or five menu items each, according to Nathan Lantieri, the Marketplace Department staffer in charge of cart permits. According to Yannecy, he offers up to 24 dishes from his truck.
“That’s like putting a Walmart next to a boutique,” Pasagic quipped.
Yannecy waved off the criticism. He said he pays for insurance and taxes, too, and thinks there are more than enough customers to go around, especially the late-night crowd he serves.
“This is America,” Yannecy said. “This is capitalism.”
Though there are two downtown food truck permits, Yannecy’s is the only one in use. A Single Pebble, the upscale Chinese restaurant on Bank Street, holds the other but has never used it in the central peddling district. Owner Chiuho Sampson said she took her truck elsewhere after she learned her College Street spot was across from Zabby & Elf’s Stone Soup and directly in front of retailer Common Deer’s storefront.
“You don’t want somebody to block your signage,” Sampson said. “If there’s a line to it, you’re gonna block the sidewalk, so it’s not convenient for people to pass by. You look at Burlington right now … There’s no place for [food trucking].”
Sampson said construction, traffic and lack of parking all make for a difficult food truck experience downtown. She is slinging spring rolls elsewhere in the city, including at breweries and other private properties, which is allowed under her central peddling district permit. Sampson would rather see the city open a designated space for trucks.
So would Solomon Bayer-Pacht, co-owner of the Farmers & Foragers food truck. While he said he’d love to see more spots downtown, he’s not sure he’d apply for one if they become available.
“We would feel weird to set up facing another restaurant,” Bayer-Pacht said. “To be parked up on a curb downtown feels like it would be awkward.”
Instead, he imagines a city-sanctioned gathering spot near the waterfront, perhaps at the reenvisioned Moran Plant, with picnic tables and an outdoor bar — a scene instead of just a curb to call his own.
City Councilor Adam Roof (I-Ward 8) chairs the license committee and introduced the resolution creating the food truck committee. He said he doesn’t know how to solve all the food truck problems but thinks the status quo is unfair.
“You could throw your bucket of poutine from the cart on Church Street to the truck on College Street, and there’s a massive difference in the cost [to operate each business],” he said. “That’s the problem. What’s the solution?”
That’ll be up to the food truck committee, Roof said. Food cart, food truck and restaurant owners; a city staffer; a city councilor; and others will sit on the panel. Those interested in serving have until July 9 to apply. The selected committee will report back with recommendations this fall, the resolution says.
“The role of good government … is to set a level playing field within a marketplace so businesses can legitimately compete,” Roof said. “I’m interested to see what comes out of the other end of this process.”
This article appears in The Cartoon Issue 2019.
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Ken’s Pizza is the absolute worst pizza in New England…I think the owners should look inward when trying to figure out why their business is suffering.
In this article the city says there is lack of parking spaces and in the street seats article it says there are hundreds of parking spaces… I think someone needs to make up there mind! From experience, there is a lack of parking. Also the idea of the vending carts by the waterfront is not a very good idea. A lot of the people that buy late night food are drunk and I can’t picture them walking way down there!
Restaurateurs otta chill – and quit whining.
Their clientele is totally different from the food trucks.
Typical VT Business Method. Get a business and don’t want any competition. Best way to make sure that doesn’t happen is to try and regulate any chance others might have of making it. Not everyone can afford a damn restaurant, so they go for a food truck. Not everyone can afford a food truck so they look for a cart. Hell even a damn cart is hard to get because of all the regulation in this state and each city having super strict rules on where you can setup and how they get their piece of the pie.
Regulation just strangles the American Dream.
@Burlington Political Observer I really like Kens pizza.
another knee jerk decision- DOWNTOWN- YOU WANT MORE BUSINESS? get parking. period.
P A R K I N G . Tell the city council to stop with the street construction, get the hge swimming pool filled with whatever they promised ( how many times has that changed?) and let downtown breath.
Wahh competition
I will keep in mind the restaurant owners mentioned in this article the next time I am considering where to eat out. I would rather not support local businesses seeking to bar the possibility of competition through regulation. On a related note — I have no sympathy for the same restaurant owners. It is their choice to operate a brick-and-mortar business in this climate (weather-wise and economic) and experience the benefits and drawbacks thereof. If they want to keep customers, they can determine what they can do step up their game (specials, extended hours, better food quality).
While I can see why someone owning a restaurant would be fearful of competition, it is unacceptable that our city is preventing the opportunities for people to showcase thier food and work for themselves by owning thier own business. If taxes are an issue, then have the city charge a tax, but letting this issue be decided by restaurant owners, many of whom own more than one location and are unwilling to grow and evolve with the demand of a newer marketplace, is unfair and not reflective of the actual desires of the residents of this city. This is an unacceptable response by our local government, and while food trucks as a topic is light, is this not classism if we are denying people a chance to start an affordable business?
The Trials and Travails of an over-stuffed, obese culture . . . boo hoo.
I feel the same way about charter schools that many commentators here feel about food trucks – that competition is a good thing. Many of the commentators are also against excessive regulations that serve to stifle competition – Trump would agree!
“This is America,” Yannecy said. “This is capitalism.”
Nothing more needs to be said. Restaurateurs are bitter because they didn’t think of it first.
It’s the Uber and the Airbnb mentality. If it’s good for one part of the economy it’s got to be good for all the parts of the economy. You can’t protect one group of people from competition while letting Uber and Airbnb put people out of business in other parts of the economy.
Let me see what I remember… Kountry Kart Deli, Ali Ka-babs, Skinny Pancake and who else? started as an alternative to restaurant fare. Even non-food business have started this way… think VT Teddy Bear. Next thing the restaurants will want to control is what? Selling ice cream from an old gas station? I wonder what Ben & Jerry would say. The city best think this one trough very carefully. It is not an issue of being fair or unfair. It is an issue of catering to those who complain about what they perceive as a loss and capitulating to the more powerful, influential voices rather than being objective.
He is getting great Publicity thanks to the little stale restaurants downtown that have been there years and offering the same old shit, same reason I cannot have a cheesecake factory here because they cry, yet the rich stay rich in this state pushing youth out, pushing out new businesses, diversity and capitalism. He is right and I support his endeavors as an African man! and would any one trying to make a living around this over priced state. Also, did anyone ever ask him his story? some people here are born with a silver spoon in there mouth the rest of us struggle to make ends meet. and those little old restaurant owners are not open at 1 and 2 a.m. so this is not hurting there sales. this is still America !he has every right to be there and seems he is doing well so haters gonna Hate. Keep it rocking man! I support Africans coming here and anyone coming here women , minorities who really are trying to make it! because I myself have a college degree a corporate job from home, ( knowing the niche is so small here to even get a chance at a high paying job). and I struggle , so more power to those trying to build a life here and in this country.