We reported a few weeks ago that New Orleans food truck owners as well as community groups, restauranteurs, bar owners, property owners and other street food advocates were in the process of organizing to make it easier to receive permits and operate as a food truck in New Orleans.

The newly formed New Orleans Food Truck Coalition is getting ready to approach City Council with proposed changes they’d like to see happen to the City’s current ordinances. But they need your help! Show the City of New Orleans that street food is an important part of our city’s economy and culture – helping create jobs and small business owners, helping bring food options to undeserved areas, and helping reduce blight on vacant, underutilized properties. Not to mention the food, glorious food that is so much of what New Orleans is about.

In case you missed it last month, the city has been all abuzz with the issues (and problems) around laws in New Orleans for mobile street food vendors. First there was a bit of a kerfuffle when a local truck set up near a local business on Magazine St., and someone complained to a City Councilwoman about it.

Then, the Times Picayune wrote this in-depth and thoughtful article about the problems with New Orleans’ mobile food regulations and how local vendors are trying to address them. Then, the Gambit also weighed in with this article. We felt the Gambit article was written with good intentions and brought up some good points. However, we do take issue with the article’s emphasis that this is a “food truck vs. restaurant” issue. We’ve heard very few complaints, if any, from local restaurants, in fact we’ve seen the opposite. Many local restaurateurs, including some of the biggest names in New Orleans dining have publicly stated they love Food Trucks and will go on record to help support mobile vending with City Council. Even groups such as the French Market Association and several bar owners are working to get MORE, not less food trucks as it relates to their businesses.

The biggest problems seem to stem from confusion on what the ordinances actually mean in everything from number of permits available, to where vendors can park, to enforcement. “It’s a bureaucratic Red Tape nightmare”, is how one vendor put it to us. Word is vendors often get different answers from different city officials, and enforcement seems to be based on the whim and confusion of whomever is enforcing whatever on any given day. This, as you can imagine has led to deep frustrations from vendors, customers, city staff, land owners, City Council, and just about anyone who deals with mobile vending issues. There are also complaints that the laws are unfair and biased, regressive, out of date, non-nonsensical and badly written.

Another big issue is around mobile food permits for Mardi Gras. Done on a “raffle style” basis, many local vendors feel this has created a situation where locals are given short shift. Instead of trucks and carts selling delicious local cuisine such as Jambalaya, Gumbo, Po’Boys and the like like one might see at Jazz Fest, Mardi Gras parade routes are filled with non-local vendors selling nothing but cheap and non-nutrious carnival style corn dogs, elephant ears, and other junk foods. Local vendors would like to see a Mardi Gras mobile food vendor permitting process that encourages the support of locally owned small businesses AND helps celebrate and showcase the diversity and unique offerings of New Orleans cuisine. As one vendor put it,

Wouldn’t it be great if Mardi Gras was known as much for our wonderful local food offerings the same way Jazz Fest is?

To this we say, YES, pass the Crystal Hot Sauce!

However, New Orleans’ mobile food vendors are a strong, savvy, and now organized group. They have gotten together to work with City Hall and are proposing new ordinances that are easy to interpret, more equitable for vendors and neighborhoods, and fall in line with cities such as San Francisco, Austin, Seattle and other cities who have recently overhauled their ordiences. Mardi Gras permits are also on the list.

Do note, the mobile vendors and supporters (including us here at NOLA Food Trucks) have made it very clear that they aren’t at battle with the City on this issue. The mobile vendors really want to work together with the City, storefront restaurants, neighborhoods and other stakeholders as active partners to create a better system that is more fair and easier for everyone.

We aren’t sure what the next steps are or how this will be received by City Council. However, stay tuned and we’ll let you know how you too can give New Orleans City Council your opinion and support our local mobile vendors when this issue moves forward.

So tell us Food Truck lovers, how do you think you can help support local food trucks and get City Council to fix these issues?

Gia DiLeo and her sister, Stephanie, started this bicycle delivery culinary adventure a couple of weeks ago with the main goal being to provide a healthy option for quick and easy food. One of the things noticed is that sometimes it is hard to find a good salad in New Orleans. Especially difficult to find an eatery offering only salad and in such a variety. They strive to use the freshest ingredients available and most of the goodies are organic and locally sourced. Green To Go encourages all to eat the rainbow, because color in food is good and good for you!

For now, Green To Go will be operating in the Uptown, University area. They roll out on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays armed with 2 to 3 leafy selections, but will likely also be riding around Audubon Park, the JCC on Jefferson and in between Tulane and Loyola on Freret Street.

Here are some of the staples:

Red
The salad that started it all! An assortment of mixed greens, combined with roasted beets, dried cherries, toasted walnuts and goat cheese with a honey balsamic vinaigrette.
Calories: 593 Protein: 12.5g Carbohydrates: 45.7g Fat: 37g
Weight Watcher Points Estimation: 10

Orange
A Green To Go favorite! Mixed greens, carrots, dried apricots, candied pecans, shredded rotisserie chicken, gorgonzola cheese with a pepper jelly vinaigrette.
Calories: 725 Protein: 24g Carbohydrates: 56g Fat: 38g
Weight Watcher Points Estimation: 13.5

Yellow
Packed with protein and flavor but low on fat and calories: romaine lettuce with roasted corn, tomatoes, black beans, cheddar cheese, crispy tortilla chips and an unforgettable chipotle lime vinaigrette.
Calories: 544 Protein: 17g Carbohydrates: 53.5 Fat: 23g
Weight Watcher Points Estimation: 9

Blue Salad
Popeye will thank you for eating your spinach, blueberries, red onions, blue cheese and bacon croutons (don’t worry – they’re Kosher!) in a light and flavorful lemon vinaigrette.
Calories: 389 Protein: 8g Carbohydrates: 44g Fat: 21g
Weight Watcher Points Estimation: 7

Stay tuned to www.greentogoNOLA.com for menu updates, such as vegan options and the Mardi Gras Slaw that will be available in a couple of weeks!

To place an order, or if you have any questions, contact Green To Go at 504-460-3160 or info@greentogonola.com.

Also, find them on Facebook + Twitter

Coming this Friday, January 20th, it’s one of our favorite new New Orleans food trucks La Cocinita – featuring tacos and delicious gourmet South American food treats.

The Fairgrounds will also be hosting a special ADULT SNOWBALL event in the beer garden:

Make sure to check out our new Starlight Signature Drinks the Adult Snowball and the Whipped Sunrise this Friday in the Miller Lite Beer Garden! The concoctions were selected by a panel of guest judges that tasted new offerings by 10 local bartenders during a contest at the first Starlight event. Each signature drink will be $6!

For more information go to www.fairgroundsracecourse.com. See you at the races!

Other unique add-ons include: bacon, peanut butter, chili, roasted garlic mayo, chipotle ketchup, sriracha, sweet chili sauce, honey mustard and pineapple ketchup. Imagine the possibilities… I’ll have one spicy pork with sweet chili sauce, and one turkey with roasted garlic mayo and bacon, please. Oh, and pass the fries too.

Here’s something you don’t see too often on New Orleans menus… New York Egg Cream, but don’t be put off by the name. This delicious sweet drink is typically, Chocolate and Milk with soda water. It actually has no egg or cream in the making. SliderShak also offers a Creole Malted Milkshake in vanilla or chocolate. I just love a good old-fashioned malt!

Pulled from the SliderShak Facebook page is their mission, “to deliver fresh, artisanal products at affordable prices in convenient locations. We are the next generation of made-to-order food, available to the 21st century social community.”

Find SliderShak on the streets of New Orleans and online on Facebook, Twitter, and their website, SliderShak.com.

They can be found tomorrow (and most Fridays) at the Bridge Lounge from 5PM to 1AM and the at The Saint Bar & Lounge from 1:30AM ’til…

Happy eating!

Today from 2-5pm, find the second round of festive, football, fun on Canal Street, plus a couple of FOOD TRUCKS giving out seafood centric food samples.

Here is the street food line-up:

Friday, Jan. 6 – Taceaux Loceaux serving Shrimp and Fish Tacos
414 Canal Street (directly across from the Insectarium) from 2-5 p.m.
Sunday, Jan. 8 – Taceaux Loceaux serving Shrimp and Fish Tacos
414 Canal Street (directly across from the Insectarium) from 2-5 p.m.
Monday, Jan. 9 – Mr. Mudbug’s Jambalaya Cookout
location and time TBD

The two-week event also includes pre-game festivities, galas, promotions, and vacation give-aways throughout the Gulf area. Stay tuned to the Louisiana Seafood Facebook Page for ongoing contests.

But most of all, get out there at eat some local grub. Oh and by the way, the entire event and food is free and open to the public. Now that’s Southern hospitality!

The reported benefits of the food van are the heightened space internally and decreased length externally, allowing for mobile food vendors to maneuver and find parking spaces more easily.

I’m thinking this may be a line in the sand… Tribute to vintage trucks, repurposed mail trucks vs. new and most likely easier mode of transbusiness. Truck/cart vs. van.

Benefits: ease, shiny and new. No more breakdowns. Negatives: seems like you still have to install equipment and a generator if needed, which could be costly. The look. Not sure about that just yet. But then again, I’m a lover of vintage, tradition, and celebration of the old through channels of the new.

What do you think?

Photo from The Hunger Forum: http://thehungerforum.org/outside-the-box/mobile-food-pantries/

We’ve written about the problem of “Food Deserts” in New Orleans before – places where low income communities especially have problems with access to healthy and affordable food options. Sadly, New Orleans is considered one of the worst Food Deserts in the nation due in part to over 30 supermarkets closing after Katrina and never coming back, along with large pockets of low income communities, and low public transportation access.

We believe strongly here at NOLA Food Trucks that people should not have to struggle to eat healthy, affordable foods. And that those in need the most should be able to easily get food from food pantries if they need it.

The New York Times recently ran this article on similar problems in Germantown, Massachusetts, and how a mobile food pantry is making it easier in low income communities by bringing the food to communities, rather than having communities struggle with expensive cab fare or long multi-transfer bus rides to reach the food:

It is based on a simple idea: If Germantown cannot get to the food, the Mobile Pantry will get the food to Germantown.

“It’s definitely a creative solution,” said Shelly Ver Ploeg, an economist at the United States Agriculture Department who studies food deserts. “For communities that don’t have a supermarket, this might be a way to go.”

It’s a genius idea and an efficient way to feed those who often need it the most. We’d love to see more of this type of model in New Orleans.

It’s a Mobile Kitchen & Dining Room to explore and celebrate New Orleans cuisine and other local foods in all their many forms. Sounds great to us! From the Ruby Slippers NOLA (not to be confused with the Ruby Slipper restaurants of similar name):

Ruby Slippers NOLA will offer historic culinary tours by licensed New Orleans tour guides, on bus tastings, cooking demonstrations by local chefs, and hands on cooking classes.

We will highlight local ingredients, restaurants giving back to the community, and properties attempting to rebuild after the oil spill and Katrina.  Ruby Slippers NOLA will focus on family operated businesses in need of rebuilding and support and will highlight historic neighborhoods of New Orleans.  We will show locals and tourists alike the history, culture and impact of this unique regional cuisine.

How will we do it? We plan to create a mobile dining room! Think about it, non-slip dishes, comfy seats, even white tablecloths…all in a bus.  A complete mobile dining room!

Between stops our guests will learn about the history of this great city and the cultural influences impacting the cuisine. If we get our permit for the double-decker bus, we will have a full dining room upstairs and a commercial kitchen and counter space downstairs. We plan to add a bathroom, surround sound system and a top of the line air conditioning system.  This won’t just be a bus, it will be a luxury dining room…

…ULTIMATE GOAL:

Pending City Approval and Bus Availability:
We have found the bus and want to buy it!  We also are waiting on city approval (they won’t let us buy the bus until approval is complete)

We are seeking funding for a 2 story bus or limo bus which can be converted into a culinary masterpiece: mobile kitchen and tables/seating complete with non-slip dishes, bathroom, surround sound and top of the line air conditioning system.  If the city approves this project, we will conduct on board tasting and history tours.  The on board commercial kitchen will be available for cooking demonstrations, classes and for use as commercial kitchen space for start up culinary businesses.

BACKUP PLAN:

We know the approval process with the city of New Orleans can be complicated and long and we run the risk of losing our bus! If in the unfortunate event the city gives us grief and won’t support our project, we have a back up plan!  We will purchase a large van (12-15 passenger) or small limo bus and outfit it as a mobile dining room…we will make these food tours happen no matter what!  Then, we will outfit a commercial style kitchen within a building in New Orleans.  We will still offer our culinary tours, tastings, classes and demonstrations! Oh…and the kitchen will still be available for use for start up culinary businesses!!!  It isn’t as cool as our ultimate goal plan, but it isn’t a bad second choice.  While we are working on our backup plan, we will continue to work with the city for the ultimate goal to happen too!!!!

For more information, and to support this innovative mobile food project, check out the Ruby Slippers NOLA Kickstarter page. We’ve dropped the founder, Amy Sins, a note asking her to contact us here at NOLA Food Trucks, so we’ll keep y’all posted.

This Saturday, October 22nd, St. Claude Satellites is hosting a free art event happening at several locations through the St. Claude Arts Corridor from 6 PM to – 12 AM that corresponds with the opening weekend of Prospect.2.

The St. Claude Arts District is located along St. Claude Avenue, between Touro Street and Poland Avenue. The satellite events will include live music, performances, and gallery openings featuring local and world-wide known artists.

There will be a free shuttle running between St. Claude Satellites, the Prospect.2 gallery and a determined location in the CBD area. Here’s more fun news… There will be FOOD TRUCKS parked along St. Claude as well! Current options include Ms. Linda’s Yakamein, BBQ-n-SOME and The Fry Bar.

For more information on the event, visit St. Claude Satellites’ Facebook EVENT PAGE.