![]() license for $2,000 for two years,” she said. She would often park downtown in Franklin Square or Farragut Square. Triana Dewi ran an Indonesian food truck called Galanga before the pandemic. Cutting fees or ensuring vendors make at least a minimum to cover their costs is necessary for a while. “But we wonder: Is it worth the fees?” The crowds can still be hit-or-miss. “A lot of times with events and farmer markets, they offer space for food trucks and food vendors,” he said. His advice to D.C.? Plan more events - and ensure vendors make a minimum. Asmar’s hummus can be found at local Whole Foods and Harris Teeter grocery stores.įrom what he hears from friends and the event bookers who still call him, “the beating heart is coming back a little bit in the food truck industry,” Asmar said. He has seen a jump in catering requests recently for graduation parties, birthdays and summer festivals, but his main businesses now is selling his family’s hummus in honor of his mother, who died of breast cancer. He went all in on a commissary kitchen in Alexandria called Asmar’s. But he “took a hard look at the books” when the pandemic arrived and decided to leave his truck behind. Owner Roro Asmar loved serving lunch to government workers in D.C. In 2019, Washington City Paper readers voted Roro’s Modern Lebanese the best food truck in the city. Changing that was key then - and even more so now. (Caribbean Delite Cafe was featured in The Post in 1997.) There was almost no night or weekend traffic. His father opened a restaurant on the edge of Chinatown in 1996 when many were afraid to venture there. He has reason to believe that revival can happen. The mayor has the right plan to convert offices to apartments downtown, Brown said. And catered lunch orders at offices are picking up. Meanwhile, he sees other “signs of hope.” In June, the Giant National Capital Barbecue Battle, a food and music festival on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, was close to the size and energy of its pre-covid days. Brown called it a “seven-day-a-week kind of area” - the perfect spot to serve tourists from the Mall, federal office workers at NASA and other spots nearby, as well as the many new residents who have flocked to Southwest D. Even some law firms have relocated from downtown to the Wharf in Southwest. He picked Southwest, not downtown, for his restaurant because that’s where the city’s heartbeat is now. SW by the Federal Center SW Metro station. In July, he opened a brick-and-mortar restaurant at 409 Third St. “Covid opened up a whole new avenue for us to get back into the city,” Brown said. When the pandemic changed office work, probably forever, he started doing takeout orders for DoorDash, Uber Eats and other platforms.Īs parts of the city struggled to revive, he saw an opportunity as rents dropped. isn’t doing similar projects.Īnthony Brown, co-owner of Jerks of the Caribbean, is a master of seasonings - and reinvention. Vo is among the minority vendors invited by developer JBG Smith to have a stall in an outdoor market that’s part of a new plaza with a water park. His future is in the National Landing area of Northern Virginia. He assessed he could make double in the suburbs what he could make in many parts of the city. Are people coming to work? Are they not?” He doesn’t like fighting other trucks for the tourist spots on the Mall. Vo has wondered whether he should try returning to some lunch spots downtown, but he said “D.C. ![]() People love us coming to pools and apartment complexes,” he said. “Food truck dinners never existed before the pandemic. Instead of serving lunch to office workers in downtown D.C., PhoWheels mainly does dinners at community events, breweries, weddings and movie nights in the Virginia and Maryland suburbs. But nearly everything else about his business has changed. ![]() Tuan Vo, owner of PhoWheels, still serves out of the truck he bought more than a decade ago. Instead of parking downtown, they’re hanging out at housing developments in Arlington, Alexandria and Bethesda, according to an analysis of Roaming Hunger data on where trucks are located. Instead of serving office workers lunch, many have found lucrative gigs dishing out dinner at weddings, block parties and other events. Many are operating again - in the suburbs. There is perhaps no better vital sign of how D.C.’s recovery is going than the story of specialty food trucks. But the gourmet operations dishing up barbecue, Thai, Indonesian, Salvadoran and soul food are still missing downtown. Today, trucks are back on the National Mall serving hot dogs for tourists. Then the pandemic wiped out this beloved sector. Office workers lined up for their favorites and texted colleagues to join them. What happened to D.C.’s food trucks? Lunch downtown used to be a mobile, multicultural feast thanks to the trucks that regularly packed Franklin Square, Farragut Square, Union Station and other gathering spots.
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