There’s a new show on Cooking Channel called Food Truck Revolution. It highlights what’s apparently one of the hottest new trends in food–food trucks. Taco trucks have been around for a long time–not around here, but in other parts of the U.S.–but these trucks are different. How about sushi, Southern fare, Korean fusion, crepes, buttermilk pancakes, “gourmet” tacos, wagyu beef dishes, etc. from a truck? Suspicious? Maybe, until you see them in action. These are honest to goodness restaurants on wheels, and the food they’re serving up looks amazing.
Aside from the obvious interest in the food, it was also interesting for me to see how these food trucks operate. Many of the owners use Twitter to update their followers on where they’ll be and when. See, I’m usually a Twitter-phobic. It’s typically useless dreck from people displaying the banality of their lives for all to see. After all, how informative, interesting, or profound can you be when you’re limited to 140 characters at a time? But this is a good use of Twitter. With the proliferation of smartphones and almost all office workers having Internet access, a truck owner can tweet their location and that message immediately goes out to everybody following his Twitter account. Mass communication doesn’t get more direct and immediate than that. I never thought I’d approve of the commercialization of social networking outlets and in general it still makes me queasy, but in this case I don’t mind small local businesses using grassroots methods to keep in touch with their fans, especially with the ever-changing nature of the food truck business.
We caught the first episode last Sunday, another episode is coming this Sunday, 8/29/2010 and I believe it also reruns later that night. I don’t know how long this show will run or if it’s just a mini series, but it’s fun so we’ll watch it while it lasts and dream of the day that Jackson gets its own food trucks. There are rumors of a taco truck in Jackson, and I’ve seen a taco truck driving down I-55, but until I eat food from a food truck in Jackson I won’t believe it’s real, and even then we’ll be a long way from where bigger cities are with their food truck scenes. I look forward to a world where I can receive tweets from my favorite food trucks telling me what street downtown they’ll be on that day.
The Food Network also has the food truck race competition. It’s not really a race. All they have to do is sell food in different cities with some kind of twist or other and whoever has the least cash at the end of the day goes home. I’ve only seen the first episode so far, but I like it. There’s definitely a craze here in DC. This summer alone saw to the maiden voyage of no less than 5 new trucks. Evidence of the power of twitter, here is what it looked like on the first day of business for Red Hook Lobster truck: http://amandamc.blogspot.com/2010/08/red-hook-lobster-truck-finally-hits.html The upper right corner of the picture is my office building. I have a custom list on my twitter that has just food trucks.
Yeah, we DVR-ed that too; just haven’t watched it yet. I’m mostly not crazy about “reality” shows like the food truck competition, but I’ll give it a watch just to see. If you get Cooking Channel definitely try to catch Food Truck Revolution. It’s food trucks without the fake drama
Oh man, lobster out of a truck! Jealous. And I knew that park with the diagonal walkways looked familiar. I could make myself a list of food truck tweeters too, but then I’d just be angry every time I got a tweet about a truck in DC, LA, etc.
Oh, Jackson. When will you catch up with some food trucks of your own? Start simple–taco trucks, maybe some fried chicken and other Southern cooking, better-than-Subway sandwiches, etc. Get to it–chop, chop!
More food truck fun: http://thecattycritic.com/?p=2316
You’re twisting the knife, man.