You might recall a little over a year ago approvals for a food cart pod in West Salem on Wallace Road near the intersection with Riverbend Road.
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| Site plan for a food cart pod in 2022 |
The site is close to Salemtowne and Brush College, neighborhoods in the north of West Salem.
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| The site (yellow pin) in north of West Salem |
Earlier this week the paper featured a note on its opening.
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| 14 carts! |
It has 14 carts! It's pretty ambitious, and it will be very interesting to follow into the fall and then the gloomy rainy season.
How will the immediate neighborhoods support it? Will West Salemites from up in the hills travel to it? How easy is it to walk and bike to?
The project could have implications for future neighborhood hub scaled business in West Salem and around the city.
Here, anyway, it feels like a meaningful pilot and something to follow. Hopefully it has real success.
Previously:
2 comments:
I know that I may be insane for publicly questioning the food cart mania but ever since they really became chic, I’ve been wondering about how they pull their weight tax wise.
How do the locally owned restaurants and bars that make up so much of the critical ambience in a nice walkable place feel about their rent burdens while having to compete with “food carts” (giant trucks) …. From what I can tell, “food cart” pods don’t help pay the freight for city services the way restaurants and bars with leases (or in their own place) do. The landowner where the “pod” lands enjoys the low property taxes of “undeveloped land” even if there are 14 busy “food carts” operating on it, with customers that drove their on the roads.
How do we make it so these businesses are an addition to a place, rather than just a free-riding business with an unfair advantage over businesses in fixed brick-and-mortar locations?
Food carts have different issues then full service restaurants.
But they still pay for licensing and other fees.
I'm unsure what you mean by freight , as often food carts buy from food distributors, such as cash and carry, who would pay for freight.
Food carts are also lower barrier, which means minorities often agree running them, much more frequently then traditional chain restaurants.
Food carts are healthy to the economic environment of walkable cities, as it allows entrepreneurs to test ideas in spaces that are not provided in traditional development.
Try looking for 100-500 sqft restaurant spaces to see what I mean.
And, while still drive to destinations right now, are far better then drive through locations for walkable cities, like you see in traditional chain restaurants.
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