Imagine a fleet of taco trucks and barbecue Airstreams parked along Broadway, and sidewalk vendors on every commercial block hawking everything from cones of fries to freshly grilled salmon sandwiches. Seattle’s Portland envy is drawing to a close: This month, the Seattle City Council will consider adopting new legislation to vastly improve Seattle’s street food scene.
The new legislation would allow up to two sidewalk cart vendors per city block face and empower the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) to create curbside food zones where food trucks could park and sell for four hours at a time. “Currently, it’s not legal for a food truck to vend from any roadway in the city—only on private property,” explains Gary Johnson, spokesman for the Department of Planning and Development, which drafted the new regulations.
Under the proposed rules, cart vendors—who are currently limited to selling coffee, hot dogs, and popcorn—could begin selling any food item short of raw meat. “The onus would be on the vendor to convince the health department that whatever they intend to sell could be done safely from a cart—which means you could sell almost anything,” Johnson says.
If approved by the city council, SDOT would award permits through a lottery drawing for popular areas—such as Belltown or the Pike/Pine corridor. “The changes are incredibly exciting,” says Council Member Sally Clark, who will be reviewing the legislation as chair of the council’s Committee on the Built Environment. “I don’t want to jinx things, but I think we’ll have this passed by summer.” 
please throw your trash or recyclables into the proper containers. let’s not be a bunch of idiots and drop it on the sidewalk or gutter. keep it clean. looking forward to the food-truck fights…or is it truck-food fights?
Portland doesn’t have food trucks parked “along Broadway.” They’re in pods, occupying a full city block, perhaps six or eight to a side. And they have plumbing, electricity & sewage hookups.
They compete with each other, not with neighborhood restaurants.
If you put food trucks along Broadway, or Queen Anne, or Ballard Avenue, they’ll compete with restaurants that have signed a lease, that pay rent, that have to pass health inspections, pay for boiler permits, sign permits, etc.
Yes to the Portland “cluster” model, no to the Seattle proposal as currently written, which would only undermine owners of small restaurants.
I’m looking forward to street level Pad Thai if that passes. I encountered the Kaosthami Pad Thai truck one night after closing time, and it seemed like a gift from heaven.
@2 – The food trucks are small restaurants. They’re just mobile small restaurants. Don’t be snobby.
Some of Seattle’s food trucks may present a small threat to restauarants because what they are serving is better quality and tastier than many restaurants (See Maximus Minumus and Where Ya At Matt to name a couple). Plus it’s To Go, which is easier when one is on a lunch sprint. See them as a threat? Up the anty and improve your food and make it easy to take on the go.
People looking for a sit-down lunch will still opt for the sit-down restaurant.
…any food item short of raw meat.
Well, there goes my chain of carpaccio, tataki, and kitfo carts.
Because it is a mobile food truck does not mean it is tastier than other cash and carry or costco or sysco supplied restaurants. People that heat up cheap mass produced food and re-wrap it as their own does not make it unique or good. But I will also say that if you have street food in a location and more people come to a neighborhood because it is exciting to be in, everyone benefits. More stuff to do means more people doing it means more people living and experiencing the dream, in turn the city will make money off permits…everyone wins!
Could they direct all the taxes collected into fixing the sidewalks?