Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

Despite the unappetizing nickname “street meat,” food carts are an extremely popular snack and meal option in the City. They range from basic coffee or pretzel carts to elaborate, gourmet food trucks with their own Yelp pages and faithful customers who have no qualms about waiting in line for—what could be—hours.

(by Alissa Fleck)

Now the Department of Health has proposed some new regulations for food cart vendors. The DOH claims these regulations would make current rules easier and more transparent for those who operate food carts. The implication is that many food cart vendors do not break the rules on purpose; these rules may simply be difficult to understand.

The DOH is also proposing changes to some of its rules governing mobile food vending to “improve sanitary practices and decrease the threat of foodborne illnesses.” Additionally the Department hopes the new regulations will help control the rampant black market for mobile food permits.

New regulations follow some recent complaints about food cart vendors. Many such complaints come from The 34th Street Partnership, a not-for-profit, private management company organized as a business improvement district. The Partnership called food vendor trucks an eyesore and wants the city to reduce the number in Midtown. The Partnership says food cart vendors are also “terrible citizens” who litter.

Street Vendor Project advocates for street food vendors. Attorney Matthew Shapiro, representing the Project, said fines given to food carts prevents them from making their carts look nicer. (Some of these many potential fines are listed in the food cart facts below.)

For one, the city hopes to crack down on accountability. Many food carts are not directly operated by the person holding the permit for the cart. The proposed regulations would require that person to be present during inspections.

Food cart size is also a problem—too-large carts may face a violation. The new regulations propose food trucks be limited to 10 feet long by 5 feet wide, except in the case of trucks. Storage facilities would also be required to log when every cart is brought in or leaves as dictated by the new rules.

Then there’s the black market. In 2011 the Wall Street Journal reported that a hot dog stand in the Bronx could cost $14,000 for a two-year permit. In this case the permit-holder, not the city, is charging the person who operates the stand.

According to the WSJ: “The city charges a mere $200 for most food-cart permits, which must be paid every two years when they are renewed. But it only issues 3,100 year-round permits plus an additional 1,000 seasonal permits—not enough to satisfy demand. Transferring or renting these permits to another vendor is illegal but everyone, including the city’s Health Department, acknowledges, that it happens.” There are 2080 people on the city’s waiting list for a two-year food cart permit.

According to the NY Post, food carts in NYC accumulated 2,517 general violations in 2011 by July. Despite violations, the city’s health department does not grade food carts like it does restaurants. The greatest violations it reports appear to result from uncleanliness on the part of the vendor, i.e. failing to wash one’s hands. The independently popular, fancier food trucks tend to be more sanitary.

Horror stories abound, though they must be “digested” with a grain of salt. One person whose brother fell victim to street cart uncleanliness told CBS in 2011 that his brother had to be hospitalized and they “found rat hair in his stomach.” (Perhaps “street meat” is not so far off, though this accusation would not be surprising in nearly any NYC restaurant.)

There may be some benefits to the proposed plan. According to the DOH website, “Carts or trucks that sell only pre-packaged, non-potentially hazardous foods or whole fresh fruits and vegetables could be stored in a facility other than a commissary” provided the facility meets certain regulations.

Despite this, many vendors fail to see the benefits.The Press was curious what food cart vendors had to say about these new proposed laws.

Two food cart vendors operating separate stands in Union Square had not heard anything about the proposal.

At a Rafiqi’s stand, also in Union Square, two cart workers present, neither of whom was the unit’s permit owner, had heard of the proposal:

“We’re all thinking the same thing,” said one Rafiqi’s worker who did not identify himself, of other vendors to whom he had spoken. “It’s crazy.” He said they agreed there were already too many restrictions in place.

Three vendors in the Flatiron area around lunchtime said they had not heard of the proposals either, while some of them seemed reluctant to the Press at all. One coffee cart vendor in the area said of the proposals: “It’s just talk.” He seemed to believe new regulations would not apply to his coffee cart.

Two vendors in what would be, by new regulations, an oversized vehicle said their boss was not there when asked about the regulations, and then that they had not heard of these regulations either.

There will be a public forum on July 19 to address the new proposal.

In 2007, New York Magazine released some interesting facts on these food carts:

-Black-market rental at the time was $3,000 a year

-The most common violation was “standing too far from the curb” (more than eighteen inches). Other violations included vending within twenty feet of a building entrance, vending at a bus stop, not offering a customer a receipt and resting food on wooden surfaces. 

-A typical vendor paid $433 a year in fines, with New York courts dealing with 59,000 vending cases every year 

-Carts are stored in garages at night, with monthly rent between $250 and $300 (many of these garages have been shut down by the Health Department) 

-Average daily revenue for a food cart was $200 to $300 

-Average annual take was $7,500 to $14,000

-The most profitable food cart item was coffee, the least profitable being fruit 

-There are no official standards regarding the quality of meat or other products

Find out more here.

More information on proposed food cart regulations can be found here.

Have you been tempted every year to visit the Chocolate Show but ultimately turned off by the overwhelming scale and trade-show vibe? 92Y’s Chocolate Fest is a kinder, gentler (and boozier) version, featuring local favorites like The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck and Liddabit Sweets providing tastings alongside prestigious international chocolatiers like Guittard. The event also features a screening of the short film Radical Chocolate, about a tree-to-bar chocolate-making collective, wine and cocktail pairings and a sampling of chocolate-friendly cheeses.

June 3, 7:30 p.m.; $29. 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave., 92y.org.

Big Apple BBQ Block Party

In some parts of the country, BBQ competitions are an integral piece of the summer. While New York City is sadly lacking in this department, for the past 10 years, Danny Meyer, owner of Blue Smoke and the Shake Shack empire, among many others, has been trying to make it right. His Big Apple Block Party assembles pitmasters from around the country, including perennial rib champion Mike Mills and whole-hog maestro Ed Mitchell, allowing festival-goers to sample the breadth of this country’s regional BBQ styles without ever leaving Midtown. Live music and seminars in the park provide a respite from all the smoke, should you need it.

June 9-10, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; $8 per plate. Madison Square Park, babbq.com.

Eat Drink Local Week

Let’s face it: Restaurant Week isn’t what it used to be. These days, it’s strictly for amateurs who don’t mind the worst tables and prix-fixe menus made up of the cheapest, least creative dishes on a restaurant’s roster. The tristate area’s Edible publications, including Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens editions, have teamed up to fill the void, presenting this annual week of special, seasonal menus at participating restaurants, tasting events and discounts at food and wine shops. Each year they choose a number of local ingredients to highlight; this year it’s spinach, eggs, goat, radishes, rosé wine, porgy, fava beans and hops. Not sure what you can make with all that, but it sounds pretty tasty. 

June 23-30. ediblemanhattan.com.

Nathan’s Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest

More a cautionary tale than anything else, this legendary contest, now in its 96th year, is worth a visit just to see the lengths to which some people will go for a free meal. Will Joey Chestnut take the prize again for the sixth year in a row? Will Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas still be impossibly skinny after another year on the eating circuit? Will former champ Takeru Kobayashi stage another rogue eat-off in protest of the organized event? You’ll have to show up to find out, and maybe grab a hot dog yourself from the Coney Island institution (take your time eating it, though). 

July 4, 3 p.m. Corner of Surf & Stillwell Aves., nathansfamous.com.

Foraging in Prospect Park

Foraging, long the purview of the homeless and freegan hippies, has been surging in popularity thanks to locavore chefs like Rene Redzepi in Copenhagen. Join the elite by going on a foraging expedition with expert Leda Meredith, followed by a tasting at nearby restaurant Beer Table. Though you may not find enough to supplant your weekly Key Food run, it’s sure to be more fruitful than your everyday walk in the park.

July 15, 2 p.m.; $30 for Slow Food members, $40 for nonmembers. Prospect Park, meet at Grand Army Plaza entrance, slowfoodnyc.org.

Parked! A Food Truck Festival

Food trucks in the city are often harassed for parking in metered spots, which are off-limits to vendors. This summer, they’ll get a free parking pass at the South Street Seaport, where over 30 of them will be Parked! all day long. Music, drinks and activities for kids will round out the day of fun; check the website to see just what they’ve got lined up this year. A VIP pass will get you a drink ticket, 10 free dishes from 10 of the trucks and a dedicated lineup at all of them so you don’t have to wait around with all those regular jerks.

Aug. 4, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; free, VIP passes $50. South Street Seaport, meanredproductions.com.

Pig Island

They take pigs (about 80 of ’em). They put them on an island. They get 20 of New York’s top chefs to cook them, add liberal doses of NY state beer and wine and set you free to drink and eat all day long. If that doesn’t sound like a wonderful dream you once had, well, you’d better be a vegetarian. Pig Island is your chance to enjoy hog-centric delights like maple-bacon sticky buns, Sriracha-glazed suckling pig and pork belly sliders all on the charmingly anachronistic Governors Island, while benefiting Food Systems NYC and City Harvest.

Sept. 1. Governors Island, pigisland.com.

86th Annual Feast of San Gennaro

Until two years ago, you went to the Feast of San Gennaro to drink luridly colored frozen daiquiris, buy T-shirts emblazoned with “Fuhgeddaboudit” and avoid getting into a fight with an extra from Jersey Shore. Then, Torrisi Italian Specialties, the restaurant that has singlehandedly elevated Italian-American cuisine, opened a stall there selling slyly Chinese-inflected mozzarella sticks and roast pork sandwiches, and chefs from downtown restaurants like WD-50, L’Artusi and The Spotted Pig followed suit. No word yet on this year’s vendors, but it’s sure to be worth the risk of a fistfight or two.

Sept. 13-23. Mulberry St. betw. Canal & Houston Sts., sangennaro.org.

Indonesian Food Bazaar

One of the borough’s best-kept secrets is slowly coming out of the shadows, but it hasn’t outgrown its small-town feel just yet. This bazaar pops up in the parking lot of Masjid Al-Hikmah, a hub for the Queens Indonesian community, during the warmer months. All of the vendors are community members who arrive with foil trays of long-stewed rendang, charcoal grills for smoky satay skewers, fritters, dumplings and amazingly multicolored dessert drinks. Don’t miss the gado gado, for which friendly church ladies grind the salad’s sweet, garlicky peanut dressing in a mortar and pestle to order.

Third Sunday of every month (roughly, check online), 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; free (donations to the mosque requested). Masjid Al-Hikmah, 48-01 31st Ave. (at 48th St.), Astoria, masjidalhikmahnewyork.org.

Smorgasburg

The organizers of the Brooklyn Flea realized the dirty secret of most street fairs: People only come for the food. In response, they created the now-monstrous Smorgasburg, a food-only version of their all-purpose artisanal marketplace. If you want to shop, you can buy pickles, olive oil or cutting boards, but the real reason to visit is for the one-of-a-kind eats. Favorites include Shorty Tang & Sons’ cold sesame noodles, from the family that created the dish some 40 years ago, and Bon Chovie’s fried anchovies, last season’s unlikely snack hit. You’ll never look at a mozzarepa at a tube-sock street fair again.

Saturdays, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; free.Williamsburg waterfront betw. N. 6th & 7th Sts., brooklynflea.com.