St. Augustine Record Editorial
Food truck village in St. Johns County: Neat idea, good timing, sited right
Posted: June 10, 2016 - 12:06am
We were pleased and a little surprised by county commissioners’ votes Tuesday to allow a rezoning near the south beaches. It allows what the applicant termed a mobile food truck vending village.
The new business will be located in that odd puzzle of parking lots, streets and roads where Old A1A and State Road 312/A1A Beach Boulevard meet — and McDonald’s, Aqua East Surf Shop, ABC Liquors and SAFE animal rescue/shelter converge at odd angles. It fits the existing zoning there. It also seems like an inspired site for such an endeavor, with that cluster of business and their customers ripe for the picking, so to speak — just as most of the food trucks tout their mobile cuisine.
Commissioner Rachael Bennett commented at the meeting that the business model seemed appropriate for the beach community. We agree. Food trucks fit the flip-flop funk of St. Augustine Beach, without the familiar kind of flip-flopping on food truck regulations by Beach city commissioners. So the applicant and property owner, Brendan Schneck, for all practical purposes, got his food truck a permanent parking place just off the beach, but not within capricious confines of its city limits.
But Schneck’s plan is bigger, and from every angle we see, better. The village will include six pads to allow that many trucks to work simultaneously. One of the issues that makes operating food trucks a difficult business is that very few of them have the capability of prepping food, or sometimes even cooking it, within their confines. Cooks require an “inside” place to do that, adding both to the hours worked and their food costs. Here, Schneck will build a 1,000-square-foot commissary kitchen with bathrooms and a waste facility. There will be 20 parking spaces onsite and room for about 60 diners to gnosh.
Not surprisingly, the neighbors were split between fans and detractors — and brick-and-mortar businesses were against it. They believe mobile kitchens have advantages that could take business away from them. But their main objections are that food trucks are able to set up on public streets in front of, or near, their businesses and that they don’t pay taxes like “real” restaurants (and servers sport more tattoos).
But Schneck’s culinary scheme ought to silence most of the objections (maybe not the tattoos). First, he’s not infringing on anyone’s territory, other than McDonald’s — which shouldn’t have a lot bad to say about other folks feeding customers through a window. The business will pay impact fees, property taxes and sales taxes just like their more stationary colleagues.
One business owner who spoke against the rezoning asked if it was fair that six restaurants be able to share one set of bathrooms. Has he ever been to a mall food court? It’s the same idea, only outside.
And that brings up a final point — it is outside. Whatever perks restaurant owners believe the food trucks have, food trucks have some unique obstacles to climb as well — not the least of which are the vagaries of weather. It’s stifling outside in the summer, freezing when winter Northeasters blow off the Atlantic and rain is a constant enemy of profit in between. Owners can prep all night, then have no customer base the next day. Their fresh food isn’t anymore. It’s both costly and confounding.
Food truck owners have to gas up their restaurants once or twice a week and they occasionally drop a transmission. One story we heard recently insisted the true bane of food truck operations are speed bumps — and tiny cups of Sriracha sauce or racks of quinoa-carob cupcakes strewn across the floor. The point is they have unique problems of their own.
It’s a fair plan in terms of competition and an utterly clever concept we look forward to seeing come to fruition.
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