The Humane Society for Greater Savannah’s recent Doggie Carnival spotlighted the nascent food truck movement in Savannah.
Despite complex regulations and widespread restrictions on mobile vending, local entrepreneurs are finding a way to make food trucks work.
In Julia Ritchey’s preview of the event here in the Savannah Morning News, a city official notes that Savannah doesn’t have a lot of room for food trucks downtown.
I have two broad responses to the idea that we don’t have the space for food trucks.
First, downtown might seem the most obvious place for food trucks, but they could operate elsewhere, too. They’re trucks, after all. They are mobile.
I could imagine independently owned and operated food trucks setting up occasionally at local universities. Or at major employers like the hospitals or Gulfstream.
As noted in the piece about the Doggie Carnival, food trucks are a natural fit for a variety of festivals. Savannah Stopover had two food trucks next to the Charles H. Morris Center on opening night this year. I recently attended Shaky Knees Music Festival in Atlanta, which had more than a dozen food trucks on the grounds for the weekend.
Second, we should note that Charleston has an active food truck scene. The last time I checked, Charleston’s downtown was a lot tighter than ours.
Yes, Charleston has a more populous metro area than Savannah, but there are close to four dozen food trucks operating there, according to a 2014 list posted by Holy City Sinner.
Charleston has 17 designated spaces for food trucks on public right of way. The city franchises those spots once a year, but they’re available on a first-come basis if the franchisee isn’t there by a designated time.
By the way, I don’t think anyone in Savannah would advocate allowing food trucks to park extremely close to established brick and mortar businesses.
Food trucks in Charleston can also set up on private property.
I first started writing about the food truck movement four years ago. I stated then that food trucks might have a tougher time in Savannah than many realize.
We are a relatively small metro area, after all, and in the aftermath of the recession there were lots of days when the city still felt really slow.
But tourism has picked up since then, which adds more potential customers to the mix, and, more importantly, food trucks have become an expected staple of the culinary landscape in cities that are serious about food.
We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We just need to create an ordinance similar to the one in Charleston and let the free market take care of the rest.
City Talk appears every Sunday and Tuesday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net. Send mail to 10 E. 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.
