http://www.arktimes.com/EatArkansas/archives/2012/10/27/food-for-thought-symposium-at-bowman-law-school Comments On: Food for Thought symposium at Bowen Law School by Cheree Franco en-us Copyright 2013 Arkansas Times. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, Arkansas Times readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact Arkansas Times. robert@arktimes.com (Arkansas Times Webmaster) Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:01 -0500 Wed, 22 May 2013 06:15:00 -0500 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by Hennysmom]]> Sun, 28 Oct 2012 18:43:30 -0500 Arkansas Times
Were minority food truck operators asked to be involved in this talk? Perhaps they were. There are a great number of minority-operated trucks in Little Rock, from the various taco trucks that have been covered here to the 'Hot Lanta truck I just recently reviewed. There are others. Was Taqueria Samantha, a mainstay of the moribund University Market, asked to participate? Was Big Daddy's Dogs?

The last Main Street Food Truck Festival brought nearly 3000 people to Main Street on a Saturday, despite horrible weather. Do we have that many people on Saturday walking down Main regularly? No, we don't. It's a veritable ghost town. South of I-630, they've started doing SOMA Second Thursdays, a food truck event at Bernice Garden that offers an evening meal option to a neighborhood that doesn't do much business after 5 p.m. Boulevard Bread Company and The Root don't serve supper. Why not?

As someone who eats in all sorts of places, and as someone who has a limited lunch break, let me break it down to everybody: People who want to stop at a food truck aren't generally going to sit down at a brick and mortar place. On the flip-side, people who are taking clients to lunch downtown aren't going to make them line up at the window of a truck. There's also that guy who owns some Subway franchises crying about food trucks -- but Subway stinks, so let's not count him.

In the end, food trucks have brought some focus to two areas of town -- Main Street and South University -- that many people avoid. The South University experiment failed due to a hot summer, but the Main Street event still draws crowds. If brick and mortar restaurants want to compete, they might take a lesson from Rocket 21 and Vieux Carre, both of whom offer a reasonably priced, perfectly delicious lunch menu apart from their normally pricey fare. And in the case of downtown restaurants like Lulav, maybe they should take time to self-reflect on their bad reputation for food and service and use that opportunity to improve. Little Rock's food trucks are generally more friendly than it's sit-down restaurants. Food trucks are happy you came. Many of our sit-down restaurants act like the customer is privileged to be served by them. That's the big difference.
Posted by Michael Roberts]]> Sat, 27 Oct 2012 19:21:41 -0500 Arkansas Times Posted by PVNasby]]> Sat, 27 Oct 2012 09:57:33 -0500 Arkansas Times