Local entrepreneur wants food truck park on the beach
Posted: June 12, 2014 - 12:19am
By BOB TIS
bob.tis@staugustine.com
The food truck revolution almost stalled at the St. Augustine Beach city limits until Brendan Schneck rolled into City Hall.
Wednesday, the affable Flagler College alum was serving up Hawaiian fruit and homemade granola from his new truck at the Farmers Market at the County Pier on St. Augustine Beach. The pier is the only place he’s allowed to park his food truck inside city limits, and then only during special events.
He hopes, however, that might soon change.
“I’d like to see a food truck park here on the beach,” Schneck said “There’s a food truck movement out there. It’s good for the community. It’s a great place to go and enjoy healthy food.”
On Monday, commissioners voiced their distinct displeasure with the mobile food movement when asked to clarify the city’s prohibition of everything from ice cream trucks to food wagons,
“Our brick and mortar businesses pay property taxes,” Vice Mayor Rich O’Brien said. “I think we should leave this alone.”
Commissioner Brud Helhoski, who also owns Jack’s BBQ on A1A, initiated the debate and initially suggested the city might up its enforcement of mobile vendors, especially ice cream trucks.
“We don’t don’t know if they’re licensed. We don’t know if they pay sales tax, we don’t know who’s driving these trucks,” Helhoski said.
Then Schneck stood up. The tall, lanky 29-year-old appeared a tad out of place at what he admitted later was his first public meeting.
Schneck, who lives off A1A by the Oasis, didn’t have to explain that he was a local. He did explain to commissioners that he was trying to feed his family with this business, provide a service and a good product and that the limitations the city had set were making it hard on him.
“We offer great organic food from local farms,” Schneck said of his Hawaiian-themed cuisine.
After graduating from Flagler with business degrees, Schneck and his girlfriend, Kelly Hazouri, moved to Hawaii where they worked on a farm for at-risk kids doing “garden therapy.”
Schneck soon learned that if the kids got healthy food instead of constant doses of sugar, they became much less of a risk.
The couple researched the growing mobile food trend blasting off in places like Miami and Atlanta right now and decided to make a go of it at home. A friend in Jacksonville helped them outfit their trailer to Department of Agriculture standards and the couple began jumping through the necessary state and county permitting hoops to open Island Bowl.
Four weeks ago, they flung open their trailer doors for business and so far it has been booming — everywhere but the beach.
“It’s a pain to haul this trailer up to Jacksonville,” Schneck said.
Wednesday, selling bowls of juicy Acai blend with apple juice, bananas and local honey, it was not lost on Schneck that the owners of the Salt Life Food Shack across the street invested nearly $2 million in their new restaurant. Schneck said his truck cost about $20,000 and he “had to bootstrap for that.”
“That’s the reality of it, for one thing,” he said. “I’m swamped with college debt and I don’t have $2 million to spend on a build out.”
Still, he feels both businesses can offer a legitimate service.
The best food trucks, Schneck said, just do one or two things, “and they do it right.”
Schneck handpicks his own blueberries and buys everything fair trade, organic and local whenever possible.
The young businessman pointed to a food truck in Jacksonville that became famous for its grilled cheese sandwiches and eventually morphed into a brick and mortar restaurant.
“I think food trucks are a way to grow entrepreneurs,” Schneck said.
Commissioners on Monday heard from local activist Ed Slavin, who gave his address as a Post Office Box in St. Augustine and testified that banning trucks that are legal, licensed by the state and inspected by the health department is a civil violation and a violation of federal trade laws.
“Banning competition because they don’t have brick and mortar is wrong. It is immoral and it is un-American,” Slavin said. “This is anti-visitor.”
But it was clearly Schneck who helped commissioners see around the corner on the issue. At Helhoski’s request, Schneck explained how he was permitted and even detailed how he went about paying his local taxes.
The popularity of food trucks was seen in St. Augustine in April when 25 mobile vendors descended on Francis Field for the Bacon Nation festival.
“It’s a lot more than we don’t want (food trucks) on St. Augustine Beach,” Mayor Andrea Samuels said. “We don’t have an event field for them like St. Augustine.”
Commissioners agreed Monday to put the issue back on the table.
“Let’s see if we can find some middle road on this,” Samuels said.
Schneck said he plans to present his ideas for a food truck park at the next meeting, scheduled July 7.
“In the meantime, I think we should find out what we can learn from Jacksonville and Jacksonville Beach,” Commission member Gary Snodgrass said.
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