Gloria's Restaurants Blog

Food Trucks vs. Restaurants vs. Cities

In DFW and many other cities, food trucks are big business and are getting bigger. However, this rapid growth of food trucks is causing problems for certain cities and restaurants.

Many cities have several ordinances regulating foodtrucks, some a little stricter than others. This has caused certain cities to adapt to these changes. Fort Worth has established a Food Truck Park up the street from the Stock Yards and it does very well most nights.

Like any business, there are both good and bad food trucks. This business relies heavily on word of mouth advertising and customer reviews, so the bad food trucks usually don’t last long.

The owners that stick around are the ones with a quality product that run a good business. In most cities there are enough patrons to go around, and it’s feasible that the restaurant owners and food trucks owners can work together or at least coexist together.

The role of cities should just be to set basic rules, and mediate between the two groups as necessary. Food standards must be put in place for food trucks as well as restaurants to protect patrons, but many cities go beyond that and have very strict zoning regulations.

With the current state of the economy, it makes sense for chefs to start a food truck as opposed to spending a lot of start capital on a restaurant space. There is cross over between customers for restaurants and food trucks, but they each have their own specific market. I don’t think it would be a good move to take a girl on your first date to a food truck, so I think the restaurants will be fine.