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Saved by suburbs: Food trucks hit by virus find new foodies
LYNNWOOD, Wash. (AP) — On a warm summer night, two food trucks pulled onto a tree-lined street in a hilltop neighborhood outside Seattle. The smell of grilled meat filled the air, and neighbors slurped on boba tea drinks. Toddlers, teens, their parents and dogs sat in the grass, chatting behind masks, laughing and mimicking imaginary hugs to stay socially distant while they waited for their food orders.
Long seen as an urban treasure, food trucks are now being saved by the suburbs during the coronavirus pandemic. No longer able to depend on bustling city centers, these small businesses on wheels are venturing out to where people are working and spending most of their time — home.
As food trucks hunt for customers that used to flock to them, they’re finding a captive audience thrilled to skip cooking dinner, sample new kinds of cuisines and mingle with neighbors on what feels like a night out while safely staying close to home.
“This is festival season, fun season. All the stuff we typically do as humans, we can’t do anymore,” said Matt Geller, president of the National Food Truck Association. “Walking out to a food truck is a taste of normalcy, and it feels really good.”
YS Street Food Group owner Yuli Shen discovered the hilltop Seattle-area neighborhood through Facebook, and she and a friend who runs the Dreamy Drinks boba tea truck went out together recently and served customers for three hours.
It’s a change and a relief for Shen. Before the pandemic, she raked in money by parking at Amazon’s campus near downtown Seattle, where hordes of office workers would line up for lunchtime Chinese rice bowls. By July, she was frantically searching for somewhere to go.
“It’s very hard to find a location to park, and so we have to find a different place and different people. It’s harder to run the business, but we’re trying,” Shen said.
Weekday lunchtime business is the bulk of the revenue for an average food truck, which may make $800 to $1,200 a day, Geller said. And lucrative appearances at major summer festivals and community events padded them for leaner winter months.
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A move from the dense down-towns to the 'burbs makes a lot of sense for both these guys & their caged-up suburban customers.
LYNNWOOD, Wash. (AP) — On a warm summer night, two food trucks pulled onto a tree-lined street in a hilltop neighborhood outside Seattle. The smell of grilled meat filled the air, and neighbors slurped on boba tea drinks. Toddlers, teens, their parents and dogs sat in the grass, chatting behind masks, laughing and mimicking imaginary hugs to stay socially distant while they waited for their food orders.
Long seen as an urban treasure, food trucks are now being saved by the suburbs during the coronavirus pandemic. No longer able to depend on bustling city centers, these small businesses on wheels are venturing out to where people are working and spending most of their time — home.
As food trucks hunt for customers that used to flock to them, they’re finding a captive audience thrilled to skip cooking dinner, sample new kinds of cuisines and mingle with neighbors on what feels like a night out while safely staying close to home.
“This is festival season, fun season. All the stuff we typically do as humans, we can’t do anymore,” said Matt Geller, president of the National Food Truck Association. “Walking out to a food truck is a taste of normalcy, and it feels really good.”
YS Street Food Group owner Yuli Shen discovered the hilltop Seattle-area neighborhood through Facebook, and she and a friend who runs the Dreamy Drinks boba tea truck went out together recently and served customers for three hours.
It’s a change and a relief for Shen. Before the pandemic, she raked in money by parking at Amazon’s campus near downtown Seattle, where hordes of office workers would line up for lunchtime Chinese rice bowls. By July, she was frantically searching for somewhere to go.
“It’s very hard to find a location to park, and so we have to find a different place and different people. It’s harder to run the business, but we’re trying,” Shen said.
Weekday lunchtime business is the bulk of the revenue for an average food truck, which may make $800 to $1,200 a day, Geller said. And lucrative appearances at major summer festivals and community events padded them for leaner winter months.
==========================================================================
A move from the dense down-towns to the 'burbs makes a lot of sense for both these guys & their caged-up suburban customers.