Food Truck

Regarding the Nov. 10 Metro article " D.C. food truck owners are steamed ": The ambiguity of the District's proposed food-truck regulation gives power to the city's Transportation Department that it should not have. Responsible politicians pass laws that are well-written so that unelected bureaucrats cannot grant "waivers" to their friends. Citizens should expect politicians to make laws clear so that the need for exceptions is minimized.   Albert T. Harrison, Alexandria

Despite their efforts to appease the city's many fans of food trucks, the directors of two District agencies faced pointed questions at a public hearing Friday on proposed regulations that would determine the future of street vending in Washington. Testifying before the D.C. Council's Committee on Business, Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, the agency heads said their departments evaluated downtown streets and singled out 180 parking spaces in "mobile roadway vending zones," which are the District's solution to the...

He remembers denim, leather and a crossfire of baked potato and filet mignon. It was the end of the '70s — more than three decades before he would open Le Diplomate , that gleaming new French bistro on 14th Street NW — and restaurateur Stephen Starr was running a cabaret in Philadelphia called Stars. That night, with punk rock antiheroes the Ramones gracing his stage, rowdy fans sent the entrees sailing across his dining room. "I knew that was the end of mixing music with food," says Starr today.

He remembers denim, leather and a crossfire of baked potato and filet mignon. It was the end of the '70s — more than three decades before he would open Le Diplomate , that gleaming new French bistro on 14th Street NW — and restaurateur Stephen Starr was running a cabaret in Philadelphia called Stars. That night, with punk rock antiheroes the Ramones gracing his stage, rowdy fans sent the entrees sailing across his dining room. "I knew that was the end of mixing music with food," says Starr today.

Among those quickest to embrace the funny, square-shaped credit card readers poking out from the top of smartphones or iPads has been small restaurateurs, food truck operators and other food businesses. And now Square, the mobile payment start-up that pioneered the equipment, is moving to embrace them. Several months ago, Square launched a "Business in a Box" package for $249, including two card readers, an iPad stand, a cash drawer and an optional receipt printer, all wirelessly connected to the...

Washington's expanding food culture has inspired a new generation of entrepreneurs to try their hand at the food business, often peddling treats they make themselves through food trucks, farmers markets, coffee shops and restaurants. One barrier to entry, at least in the District, can be finding a kitchen in which to cook. Currently, city law requires bakers and cooks to prepare food in commercial kitchens, with rates, often driven up by District real estate prices, that can be unaffordable to...

David Pena's culinary career began at Rustico , where he worked his way up the line to sous-chef over the course of three years split between the Arlington and Alexandria locations. When it was his turn to cook the family meal for the restaurant staff, he would oftentimes make tinga based on recipes handed down by his Mexican mother and grandmother. The casual, comforting stewed meats spiced with chipotle sauce were always a hit with Pena's colleagues, who half-jokingly told him more than once that he should make nothing...

Juan Jose Quintana grew up in Valladolid, Spain. At home, his American mother often combined elements of Spanish and American cuisines to memorable effect. "She would add mayo, radishes and onion relish to a chorizo sandwich, and my friends loved it," Quintana says. He now blends those sensibilities at Rolling Ficelle, a 2-month-old newbie to the city's robust food truck scene. The 44-year-old is also new to the industry; his previous career was in non-food-related customer service.

You can smell the ketchup from down the block, but you shouldn't expect anything less from a food truck called Slider Barron. Painted navy and sky blue and sporting yellow stripes and fake bullet holes, it is designed to evoke fighter planes of World War II. A winged burger insignia and the painting of a pin-up girl — whom cook and owner Tony Barron, 46, of Westminster, Md., affectionately calls Faith — rounds out the aero-themed imagery. Since rolling out in Montgomery County in May, the wheeled commissary has been...

Three things can give food-truck vendors an edge: a highly visible truck, effective Twitter feeds and, of course, really good food. Even though Lemongrass just opened in December and its owners, husband-and-wife team Andy and Uyen Nguyen of Centreville, have no background in food service, their truck is already an overachiever on all three fronts. The bright-green vehicle is painted with white bubbles and a colorful, anime-like logo featuring two little girls — one holding bubble tea and the other a Vietnamese banh mi...

Hoping to fend off the argument that the District's proposed street-vending regulations would squash the local food-truck scene, directors of two city agencies plan Friday to identify more than 150 prime locations for mobile vendors in the Central Business District. At a public hearing at which dozens of speakers are expected to rant about the regulations that would govern street food and merchandising, the officials plan to unveil a map showing the exact number of vending locations for food trucks and other...

Among those quickest to embrace the funny, square-shaped credit card readers poking out from the top of smartphones or iPads has been small restaurateurs, food truck operators and other food businesses. And now Square, the mobile payment start-up that pioneered the equipment, is moving to embrace them. Several months ago, Square launched a "Business in a Box" package for $249, including two card readers, an iPad stand, a cash drawer and an optional receipt printer, all wirelessly...

The April 30 editorial on food trucks, " On the move — and out of D.C.? ," makes one wonder, do aesthetics count anymore? Everywhere you look in the District, your senses are offended. From the endless series of festivals on the Mall, with their port-a-johns, Jersey barriers, dumpsters and vendor tents selling T-shirts and pretzels, to the recently added protest tents, the city has a Third World look and feel to it. Every year, another monument or museum of questionable design takes up more open space on the...

HAVE YOU visited Farragut Square or L'Enfant Plaza or Franklin Square at lunchtime recently? The burgeoning of Washington's food truck industry is extraordinary. The mobile kitchens are inventive, dazzlingly varied, amazingly popular — urban life at its best. Now District regulators are threatening to choke their growth. Ever since the first food truck showed up at the presidential inauguration in 2009, the city has struggled with how to regulate a pioneering business that falls outside prescribed categories.

Washington's expanding food culture has inspired a new generation of entrepreneurs to try their hand at the food business, often peddling treats they make themselves through food trucks, farmers markets, coffee shops and restaurants. One barrier to entry, at least in the District, can be finding a kitchen in which to cook. Currently, city law requires bakers and cooks to prepare food in commercial kitchens, with rates, often driven up by District real estate prices, that can be unaffordable to entrepreneurs...

Organization: American Chemical Society. Location: The District. Employees : 570 locally; 2,000 nationwide. On a warm day last fall, Michael Mury and his co-workers dashed around downtown Washington with a whimsical to-do list: Take photos of themselves in front of five embassies. Nab a sample-size spoon from a frozen yogurt shop. Make a stone rubbing of something that dates prior to 1920. Mury and his teammates took on these and dozens of other...

The owners of the new Stix truck have a point: It's tricky to snack and saunter down Washington's streets with many of the eats you can buy curbside. So Jane Lyons and Leah Perez decided to borrow a technique used at state fairs from the Carolinas to California and impale their freshly prepared food on sticks. I mean, all of their offerings, whether thin strips of grilled beef or what they generously call "apple pie," are neatly speared on 10-inch skewers, like so many bronzed Peruvian chickens on a spit.

Free from the confines of brick-and-mortar structure, local food trucks are known to take creative liberties with the queen's English. Summer upstart Feelin' Crabby has brought some new nouns to town as it summons crabivores to lunch on a crabwich. The crab sandwich is the centerpiece of Feelin' Crabby's simple menu. Chef-owner Alex Tsamouras dresses the crab with lemon juice, Dijon mustard, mayonnaise, Old Bay seasoning, diced red bell pepper and parsley. A five-ounce portion of the balanced, refreshing blend is...

HIGHLIGHTS With a name like Steak Me Home Tonight, Dave's food truck was obviously going to get stolen at some point — and that's exactly what happens on "Happy Endings" (ABC at 8). Later, Alex convinces Penny to reach out to her estranged father (guest star Andy Richter) in time for her wedding. The CEO of Fatburger — a "fast casual" restaurant — goes on "Undercover Boss" (CBS at 8), and discovers some of his stores have payroll issues and broken equipment.

The latest proposed vending regulations determining how and where food trucks can operate in the District could make much of the central downtown business area off-limits to unlucky operators, according to the results of a recent sidewalk survey by the Food Truck Association of Metropolitan Washington . The association spent hundreds of man-hours measuring the sidewalks in the Central Business District , the high-density area where food...