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One Way to Take Care of Business
Workers gather at Baby's Badass Burgers last Wednesday in Mid-Wilshire | Photo by Julie Wolfson/LAist
The popular lunch truck row in Mid-Wilshire has the scores of office workers in the area thrilled. Echoing the sentiments of Michael Schneider who calls the area a "vast wasteland of lunchtime eateries," the lack of diverse choices has workers bored or worse yet, some places just seem like horrid choices to them. But since the food truck craze has hit Los Angeles, the lunch time options have changed.
That's meant happy days for many workers, who freaked out Wednesday when the LAPD arrived to cite the trucks over a variety of issues. The next day, there were only two, when usually there can be more than five.
LAist readers and others commenting on the internet at websites like Yelp have been solely focusing blame on Toshi's Fresh Asian. But Toshi's says don't look at just them, it's everyone.
"They're only picking on us apparently," said Toshi's General Manager, Fred Williams, who thinks all the recent criticism has been unfair. "We're actually not the ones who called the police [on Wednesday]. All the restaurants here have been complaining about the trucks. We gave up on it a long time ago. We really haven't been doing anything about it."
And that's true. Jose Ceja, the manager over at Johnnie's New York Pizzaria, says all the restaurant managers in the area, including Koo Koo Roo, Baja Fresh and Organic to Go, have been meeting over the issue. "We're all trying to work together getting rid of these things," explained Ceja. "I've cut employees left and right because we don't have enough income to keep everyone here. The economy has been bad and I had to cut, and then these trucks show up and had to cut more. We all average $15,000 to $18,000 in rent, have to pay employee taxes and alcohol licenses."
"You know, some of us have been here for 10 to 12 years and all of the sudden these catering trucks park here at broken meters and take our lunch business," continued Ceja, explaining that the city told him they do not have the resources at the moment to constantly fix the broken meter problem. He said one city employee told him they suspect the food trucks are breaking the meters with paperclips. But once again, the city does not have the resources to monitor the meters.
However, Ceja believes there can be a happy medium. The group of managers have contacted Councilman Tom LaBonge's office and it appears he might be looking into some regulations. But we've been here before. Regulating taco trucks in the past has proved a difficult task for officials. Most recently, a judge struck down a 2006 city ordinance that regulated food trucks.
"There has to be some kind of guidelines," said Ceja. "You can't just park in front of another business." He suggests maybe looking into a law that would allow the trucks to park on side streets, but not directly in front of a restaurant.
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It's modern-day "survival of the fittest".
If you can't take a little competition, perhaps you should reconsider your line of work.
Or get.... out of the kitchen......
Yeah, trying not to state the obvious. ;-)
Or make it undeground.
like a scavenger hunt,
circul8 flyers
that you'll twitter the side street location and such.
great idea treeVerb. It is better than setting up shop infront of a rent-paying same-type business. I once witnessed a guy with a knife sharpening 'truck' attempt to set up shop infront of a well established business that offered knife sharpening as one of their many services. You wouldn't believe how fast the truck was shut down. I believe in the idea of competition, however, the playing field has to be a level one. If you were offered the same quality & type of food from both vendors, would you pay extra for the food you were served in a restaurant? The reason the food from the trucks is less-expensive is that they do not have the same overhead as the restaurants. If this trend continues, prepare to see less and less 'brick and mortar' take-out fast-food businesses in high-rent areas.
the scavenger hunt... is a great idea
Or listen to the customers!!! They say they are bored with the same food choices every day, so vary up the menu! Introduce new dishes! Promote specials, esp for business people in the area!
Look at your advantages - service, quality of food, freshness and focus on that.
Cutting down the competition and forcing people to eat food they are sick of isn't the solution.
Now stop complaining and get to it!
It's like... guys? It's a TACO TRUCK. And you're whining that your food can't possibly compare? With a full kitchen and varied menu at your disposal?
Toshi's = Terrible food. I gave it a few tries and every time it blew. That KooKooRoo has the worst service, I don't even go in there anymore cause the management is so terrible. The trucks are fun and actually increase the traffic to the area...
I say a revolt from building 5700 might need to be put in the works.
(but I do like O to go so lets not ban them)
I work in 5750 and I'm about to start organizing a protest or a petition or something to let the restaurants know they need to stop. If you work in 5700 (or know someone who does) contact me at whorfin.john (at) gmail (dot) com
Perhaps the restaurants will get more business once the clientele tire of lunch truck food. But calling the police and trying to force them out of the area is just plain "sour grapes."
As I've said in response to other articles about these trucks, some of the best fast-food I've ever eaten came from one of these trucks.
Toshi's rightfully should be picked on -- its food is absolutely horrific. Toshi's was empty long before the food truck craze began, so any police action to rid the street of competition won't suddenly materialize customers who weren't there to begin with. That strip of restaurants rested on their laurels thanks to the lack of competition -- and as a result, their food and service became unbearable. They have only themselves to blame.
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I work a little further west down Wilshire from here. I know the trucks want to park as close to their customers as possible, but there is a pretty empty swath of Wilshire outside/across from LACMA and the Variety building. I noticed that a few trucks have done this. Skewers and Kogi have both set up shop outside the Variety bldg. where there aren't any competing restaurants just next door. Greentruck might have as well, but I've only seen it by the E! bldg.
So truck owners/operators, please just set up shop a block or two west of where you are!
What would be great is if the city blocked off let's say 50 yards of space in a different neighborhood every day. Keep the trucks moving and create excitement for the different neighborhoods. This would be good for business, workers and wouldn't cause a stir with restaurants.
Monday-West Hollywood
Tuesday-Downtown
Wednesday-Culver City
Thursday-Century City
Friday-Hollywood
Saturday-Silverlake
Sunday-Pasadena
How can the manager from Johnny's complain about the cost of his alcohol license? Alcohol licenses are a classic case of government created scarcity. Effectively, the government is subsidizing his business by limiting his competition. And he's acting as if that subsidy is a burden and using that as a reason why the government show further subsidize his business by further limiting his competition. The purpose of regulations is not to protect the profits of Johnny's New York Pizza by limiting consumer choice.
Just be happy you don't work in a culinary shithole like the OC. At lunch your options are usually x hamburger chain , X sandwich chain, 7-11, and that's about it. Might be lucky to find some decent hole in the wall ethnic restaurant that is not Mexican but those are few and far in between.
interesting to see that past attempts to regulate trucks have focused on the trucks as vehicles, by relying on a variety of parking enforcement measures, rather than the trucks as actual businesses.
i'm a big fan of this new advent of food trucking, but the principle gripes of the store owners make sense. it seems that they are subjected to more taxes and health regulations. have the trucks pay a minimal license fee and allow them to operate freely outside a certain radius from real restaurants.
It seems to me that if someone wants a sti down meal with table service they'll go to a resturant. If they want to grab something quick and eat standing up they go to a truck. So I really think the unfair competition claim is kind of bogus. Besides, a lot of commenters here seem to indicate that the resturants' main problem isn't the competition, but the lack of having any in the past.
It's really the fault of the businesses that they don't mix up their menus to entice people to come in more. Blaming the trucks is the easy thing to do but it still wont mean the customers return to them if they're successful in these snitching practices.
You know what they say.. Snitches get stitches, yo.
AT LEAST AT THE ROACH COACH YOU EXPECT THE GUY IN THERE TO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH! WHATS YOUR EXCUSE Koo Koo Roo! hire some teenage kids to do that job thats what they are for, not for career illegal beaners!