Posted by Debby Yoder, ATLANTA, GA -- The food truck
industry in Atlanta has grown tremendously in a very short time. They appear
regularly around the metro area and people flock to try something new and
different. The city was slow to get in on the food truck business due to
resistance from established brick and mortar restaurants, In fact, despite
their mobile nature, food trucks are only allowed to operate on private
property such as the Food Truck Park.
The Atlanta Street Food Coalition helps people locate food trucks and promote the
industry. They also offer Street Food 101 to teach people all they need to know
about opening their own food truck. It’s a relatively small investment to start
a food truck business and can be accomplished with a very small staff. If we
were to embrace this concept and shift investment monies from empowerment zones
to empowering people, we could create a number of new businesses. The mobile
concept could be expanded to include grocery stores, book stores or whatever a
community may need. Fresh foods could be brought into areas without grocery
stores and individuals could be instrumental in identifying and meeting the
needs of their neighborhood.
Debby Yoder is a contributor to Social Shutter. She is also a Sociology major at Georgia State University. She can be reached at debby.yoder@gmail.com.
