This is the place where food trucks really first took to the streets, catering to fanatical customers who relished — along with the food — the renegade and slightly outlaw nature of the whole business.
Those frontier days may be about to end.
Los Angeles County is moving to submit its flock of 9,500 food trucks and carts to the same health department rules as restaurants — including requiring them to prominently post a letter grade based on food inspections — in what may be the ultimate sign that this faddiest of food fads is going mainstream.
And if that is not establishment enough, food trucks, whose allure has been enhanced by their mysterious comings and goings, some signaled by puffs of Twitter postings, will have to file route maps (route maps!) with the health department, to facilitate at least one field inspection a year, beyond the single annual inspection now required.
As with restaurants, health inspectors will be empowered to shut down a truck that scores less than a C for not enough attention to basic safety and food hygiene practices — for example, dirty counters, food left out, unwashed hands.
“People are saying, ‘I see A, B, C’s at restaurants, but not trucks: Why not?’ ” said Jonathan E. Fielding, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. He said Los Angeles had seen a 13 percent reduction in hospitalizations linked to restaurant food poisoning since the county first imposed the rule on restaurants in 1997. “We changed the incentives, and that’s what this is all about,” he said. “We want protecting consumers against food-borne illness to be top-of-mind all the time.”
By any measure, this is a serious moment in the evolution of food trucks, coming in the city that is the symbol of the Wild West ethos of the trucks: where it is possible to walk the streets and face an array of offerings ranging from traditional beef tacos to kimchi quesadillas (think Korean-Mexican fusion), sold in trucks painted in pastel colors, affixed with Twitter addresses. They draw rolling throngs of customers whose nonchalance at the prospect of these new regulations, at least as reflected in some interviews, suggests that the dietary risks of food truck exploration might be part of the thrill.
Full story: In L.A., Food Truck Fad Is About to Go Mainstream – NYTimes.com
