Food trucks at Yonge and Eg?
[attach]7552[/attach]Food trucks will soon be parking at sidewalks near Yonge and Eglinton if, as expected, the city votes this month to relax its streetfood rules — a move councillors such as Josh Matlow, Ward 22, have been pushing for more than six years.
It would be a dream come true, says chef Zane Caplansky, owner of Kensington Market’s Caplansky’s Deli. He has a food truck he promises to bring to Yonge and Eglinton should the March 18 Licencing and Standards Committee vote allow operators to set up shop next to metred stations on the sidewalk or in parking lots that are 20–50 metres away from existing restaurants.
Caplansky said when he frequented bars at Yonge and Eglinton in his youth he would often be disappointed when he emerged at about midnight to find “there would be nothing to eat.”
Food trucks, he said, would address that problem and also bring “vibrancy and excitement” and new gastric choices to the neighbourhood.
“If you can park your car for three hours, you’ll be able to park a food truck,” said Matlow, the Ward 22 councillor who has been actively encouraging food truck owners like Caplansky to sell their wares at Yonge and Eglinton.
Matlow calls the neighbourhood’s mix of seniors and “young and eligible” the perfect demographic for food truck service.
Few restaurant owners share Caplansky’s and Matlow’s enthusiasm, however.
“If food trucks are going to be in the area … I don’t like it,” commented Stella Wang, owner of the Tim Hortons franchise at 2245 Yonge St.
Warren Price, executive vice president of South Street Burger Co., which has a location at 2383 Yonge St., remarked that food trucks “can certainly bring a new vibrancy to parts of the city,” but said the new rules need to account for the cost of running a brick-and-mortar restaurant compared to a food truck. And he does not believe a 50-metre buffer would be enough for a “restaurant-rich” area like Yonge and Eglinton.
“(Restaurants) rely on the parking spots those trucks are going to operate in,” he said. “Some consideration for how to manage that needs to be taken into account.”