The Original Food Hall

Nur Asri is an Associate for Larisa Ortiz Associates

Hawker centers in Singapore go way back. Its history goes back to the 1950s and 60s when migrants took up hawking on streets as a quick and easy means of earning a living. However, the conditions in which street hawking was being carried out were bad – drains were polluted, sidewalks and roads were strewn with trash and as a result, vermin were a common sight. The government became concerned about the state of hygiene in the city and, in the style of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia’s campaign in the 1930s to rid New York City streets of pushcart vendors, began relocating street hawkers to facilities with proper sewers, safe water and electrical lines, and full kitchen and storage equipment in 1971. These are now widely known as hawker centers. Hawker centers are semi-enclosed buildings that house a variety of food stalls serving food, drinks, and desserts that are almost always prepared to order. Sounds familiar, no? Read: The Modern Food Hall 

In fact, there are a number of similarities between the food halls that have recently grown in metropolitan cities here in the US and the over 100 hawker centers in Singapore.

1. Size and Layout

Stalls in both food halls and hawker centers are small in size. At hawker centers, stalls typically measure no more than 80-100 sf each.

Also, the seating layouts of both food halls and hawker centers promote a sense of community. Seating is dispersed throughout both and are not assigned to customers so it works on a first-come- first-serve basis. This means that you might very well be sitting with strangers during busy lunch hours.

2. Tenant Mix

Hawker centers feature food from Singapore’s various ethnic groups – Malay, Chinese, Indian – and is a direct reflection of local inhabitants. In food halls, offerings are also diverse, however, they may be less organic and more curated. Some food halls, for example, brand themselves as chef- driven halls and provide offerings that are completely distinct from local residents’ tastes and preferences.

3. Employment opportunity

Both food halls and hawker centers provide great inclusive employment opportunities. Given the low barriers to entry (presumably the smaller spaces ask lower rents compared to full-service restaurants or cafés), many more aspiring food entrepreneurs are able to enter the culinary field via these facilities.

As reported by JLL, startup costs are much lower and lease terms more flexible in food halls than traditional retail leases. Lease terms for food hall vendors are typically one to two years, much shorter than the five- to 10-year terms that landlords command for conventional full –service restaurant spaces.

4. Social space

With more food halls being located in mixed-use developments and transit-oriented developments, they are also becoming more physically accessible to wide range of customers. This has also been thecase with hawker centers in Singapore. Many are located in residential neighborhoods or near transit stations and therefore has successfully served local residents, workers, and visitors.

As a result, food halls and hawker centers provide a great shared space for informal social gatherings, community events and programs. For years, hawker centers have served as meeting spots for the elderly during the day as they sit and enjoy coffee and toast. Families also gather on weekends to eat together without spending too much money.

However, despite these similarities, the modern American food hall hasn’t quite matched up to the hawker center of Singapore. There are stark differences between the two.

 

1.  Customer

Legacy Food Hall in Plano, TX famously tagged in posts on social media site, Instagram.

While food halls here in the US strive to meet the needs and preferences of a variety of consumers from low- to mid- price points, how many can really show a diverse customer base? Food halls here in the US often have carefully curated brands and marketing materials that, for the most part, appeal to millennials and mid- to high- income customer segments.

Meanwhile, in Singapore, the hawker center is the place where Singaporeans from across income levels and ethnicities gather to eat with purpose at all times of the day. At lunch time, business types, taxi drivers, students, and the elderly are all seen queueing for the very same Chinese noodles or Malay fried noodles. This is largely because price points are extremely low that customers run the whole gamut from blue collar to white collar and even the creative in-betweens. Everybody needs quick and cheap food from time to time.

The main reason that price points remain so low at hawker centers however is due to ownership and management.

2. Ownership/ Administrative Capacity

Today, the Singapore government continues to own the majority of hawker centers across the country.  Prospective hawkers have to bid for available stalls and pay rent to the government at subsidized rates. These subsidies allow product prices to be kept lower than that in shopping mall food courts.

Of course, I’m not saying that food halls should be government- owned and operated to truly achieve the diverse customer base it’s currently seeking but it’s important we realize that the profit motive of private food hall developers and operators are often misaligned with the community, economic, and social benefits that could be attained.

In order to maintain the mission of low cost culinary offerings for diverse customers, partnerships and support from public bodies or non-profit organizations must be built to ensure that food halls resonate with local customers and communities. These supporting bodies may even be able to offer complementary community programs at low cost and therefore attract a wide range of customers from the neighborhood. Diversifying ownership of food halls might just solve its issue of not quite reaching the masses in its current branded state.

Farmers Market as Downtown Revitalization Tool

Nur Asri is an associate at Larisa Ortiz Associates

Fall is upon us and for LOA that means the work on a second round of New York State Downtown Revitalization Initiatives is set to begin. In the past year, our work has brought us to smaller, more rural towns upstate and around the country and with that, came many visits to local farmers markets. Farmers markets, or “multi-stall markets at which farmer-producers sell agricultural products directly to the general public at a central/ fixed location” are not a new phenomenon. In fact, marketplaces have been a key economic, cultural, and social component of villages, towns, and cities for thousands of years. Today, smaller downtowns, are seeing a resurgence of farmers markets as economic revitalization tools, particularly in areas with existing agricultural assets. In this post, we discuss the potential benefits that can be reaped from a downtown farmers market and actions that can be taken to ensure the most effective implementation of one.

Farmers markets are community porches

Many of the farmers markets we have observed in our work, whether intended or not, have evolved into the “front porch” of the community and function as key gathering places. Residents and visitors from various walks of life convene at the market through a common interest for fresh, local produce resulting in unique social interactions.

Morganton Farmers Market at the retail core. Photo: LOA

In some cases, farmers markets have also been key in activating formerly underutilized spaces downtown and turning these into active public spaces. From old warehouses to underused parking lots and vacant land, farmers markets have the power to activate these spaces by introducing a new public use and attracting new users of the space.

In Morganton, NC, for example, hosts a mini farmers market every Wednesday in the warm months on a field that was simply sitting vacant by the retail core of the downtown. Meanwhile, in Springfield, OR, a year-round farmers market is hosted in a former church property that was purchased and refurbished with a 3,000 SF event space.

Farmers markets promote health and wellness

The seasonal freshness of fruits and vegetables sold at farmers markets, the in-built nutritional value of goods sold, and the direct linkage made between food producers and consumers, makes the markets fitting platforms for health promotion and nutrition education.  In addition, consumers around the world are also gaining a new appreciation for and connection to their food producers, so farmers markets are the much-needed platforms to further grow support for local food systems.

In addition, farmers markets that offer SNAP programs also expand low-income households’ access to healthy foods, ensuring that all local residents are able to reap benefits from the healthy offerings at the markets and raising nutritional levels among low-income households. Additional free programming such as cooking and nutrition classes offered at farmers markets can often expand the accessibility of healthy local produce by educating those households that are unfamiliar with preparing fresh, wholesome meals.

Now, for the economic benefits.

Farmers markets are visitor attractions

Farmers markets are also great downtown anchors that attract hoards of residents and tourists for hours weekly. Naturally, this raises foot traffic that may otherwise be lacking in smaller downtowns. In Springfield, OR, for example, the famers market attracted an estimated 30,000 people and more than 40 regular vendors in its first year of opening alone.

In a smaller, rural downtown, this regular stream of pedestrian traffic to the farmers market translates to foot traffic into neighboring stores and restaurants, especially when the farmers markets are held on weekends and customers dwell times are more flexible.

Farmers markets add to downtown retail mix

With more traditional farmers markets that host fresh produce and specialty food vendors, these markets essentially act as the local grocery store. In more rural parts of the country where the grocery store is typically a big box Walmart or Wegmans or Food Lion that requires driving 15 minutes outside of downtown, the farmers market can be a solution to bridging a hyperlocal retail gap.  Its location, typically in a downtown parking lot, means that it is far more convenient for residents in the area to grab a carton of milk or spare eggs. Not to mention, the freshness of pastries and bread sold at the farmers market compared to the large grocery store.

As consumer preferences shift, even grocery stores are replacing their aisles with even more fresh, local produce and organic goods – goods that are already filling the wooden crates at farmers markets. In 2008, local food sales were estimated to be close to $5 billion and farmers markets are naturally aligned to leverage the growth in this demand (if it's not already being met!).

Farmers markets function as business incubators and accelerators

From Farmers Market vendor to.....

Finally, and most importantly, farmers markets cut the middlemen who typically distribute farmers’ and artisans’ goods, therefore raising profit margins for the producers. The markets also act as business incubators by providing the opportunities for producers and makers to first test products directly with consumers and get real time feedback thru product samples – all at a much, much lower cost than either setting up a storefront or selling online. The Fresh Friday Farmers Market in Allentown, PA, for example, has provided increased business opportunities for local farms and food businesses proliferating in the LeHigh Valley.

...Storefront! This is Cedar Rapids Whiskey Sauce Co. in Ely

Upon finessing and growing the demand for their products and services, many farmers market vendors have then grown big enough to be able to set up brick-and-mortar stores downtown. For downtowns that lost retail tenants in the last economic downturn, this business incubation function of farmers markets may be ideal to helping fill those storefront spaces. For example, in Richmond, VA, a vacant storefront that was formerly occupied by a bakery was recently bought over by a pastry chef who sells pastries and baked goods at the local St Stephens Farmers Market. Although the owner will essentially be replacing goods that were already on offer by the previous tenant, the farmers market start has enabled her to refine her merchandise selection based on early consumer feedback.

Other examples of farmers market vendors that have moved on to brick-and-mortar include Blacksauce Kitchen that made its start at the JFX Farmers' Market in Baltimore before recently opening a shop that serves customers one day a week. In Iowa, Cedar Rapids Whiskey Sauce Co last year opened a shop on Dows Street in small downtown Ely after making its start at local farmers' markets and several HyVee grocery store locations.

How to ensure farmers markets really become downtown revitalization tools:

Unfortunately, not all farmers markets have been powerful downtown revitalization tools. There are a number of steps that need to be taken to ensuring that the benefits we discussed above can be achieved.

Site your farmers market in or near your retail core

Geneseo, NY Farmers Market off Main Street by local theater.

Firstly, the location of the farmers market is crucial to driving spillover foot traffic from the market to downtown storefronts. If the market isn’t located in the retail core of downtown, shoppers are unlikely to stop by adjacent storefronts after perusing the market. In Morganton, NC, for instance, before introducing a mini market on Wednesdays on an empty field at the retail core, hosted its weekly farmers market 0.5 mile away, far away enough (given the hotter climate and elevations) that customers passing through the farmers market would have to get in a car before being able to get to downtown. And we all know, once your customer gets in the car, they’re as good as lost. The farmers market wasn’t quite an anchor for downtown businesses until it was introduced right smack in the retail core.

Locating farmers markets in the retail core will be especially crucial for downtowns that have residential uses located at the retail core or within walking distance of downtown. Having direct and easy access to a large residential shopping demand is crucial to the success of vendors, and of course if vendors succeed, they are likely to return to sell goods, maintaining the critical mass of vendors needed to attract customers and ensuring overall sustainability of the farmers markets.

Provide supportive transportation infrastructure

City of Palo Alto installed bike racks on the
street used for weekly farmers market.

If your downtown is dense and walkable and the bulk of your customers are residents who already live in the vicinity, then supportive infrastructure to help customers get to the farmers market might include wide sidewalks, pedestrian crossings, wayfinding signage, bike lanes and bike parking facilities, and bus stops.

On the other hand, if your downtown is small and much more rural with most customers only able to arrive by car, then convenient and well-maintained parking lots should also be made available to support a “park once” downtown for customers and vendors to visit the farmers market and other businesses all at once without having to worry about moving their cars.

Complement the market with programming

Portland, OR Market Music event showcases local acts.

Educational community programs and local music acts are some activities that accompany farmers markets across the country and these are great ways to further engage local residents and visitors that pass through. The best way to find out what types of programs the local community needs is to simply carry out an intercept consumer survey.

At the same time, programs should also be organized to help vendors grow their business and following. The Neighborhood Economic Development Corporation in Springfield, OR, organizer of the downtown farmers market is an owner of properties downtown. Once vendors at the market reach a stage of expansion that requires a larger and more regular storefront, NEDCO is able to rent spaces it owns at lower rates to support these businesses.

Operate the market during accessible hours

Depending on the downtown and the number of major employers in the area, it may be effective to hold farmers markets on weekdays. In such cases, vendors may leverage the existing daytime worker market demand during lunchtime. On the other hand, if the weekday daytime population downtown doesn’t exist, then a weekend market would make more sense. 

Actively brand and market

Strong local campaigns to bring awareness to and promote the farmers market are crucial to establishing a new downtown anchor. In Livingston County, NY, (where we’re about to embark on a Countywide Commercial District Assessment), a Find It In Livingston campaign encourages shoppers to seek local produce and goods by actively announcing where and when downtown farmers markets happen on the county economic development website. The Charles City Downtown Farmers Market similarly participates in the ‘Buy Fresh, Buy Local’ campaign, a comprehensive marketing program for farmers selling directly to consumers, restaurants, grocery stores and other institutions.

Ensure strong administrative capacity

As with all downtown economic revitalization initiatives, administrative capacity and resources are required to sustain farmers markets. In addition to support from the City, buy-in from local residents is essential to carrying out a successful market. While the City is able to support the market in procuring a vacant site or supplying sanitation facilities and power, support from local businesses and individuals will ensure sustained customer traffic and vendor participation.

The non-economic and economic benefits of farmers markets might tempt you to implement one downtown. However, they must not be assumed to be simple revitalization tools. Farmers markets are complex efforts that often require the cooperation of a wide range of stakeholders (existing business owners, residents, community leaders), thoughtful planning, extensive programming and marketing, and of course funding! Who knows what this second round of funding from New York State will bring to the downtowns we’ll be working with this Fall but we will be keeping a look out for those farmers markets and keeping our eyes peeled for what works for them!

If you already have a farmers market downtown and are looking to assess its impact, take a look at this economic impact study of the farmers market in Downtown El Paso: http://downtownelpaso.com/economic-ripples-felt-from-downtown-artist-and-farmers-market/

Retailer Spotlight of the Month: Sweetgreen

Image: Sweetgreen

Sweetgreen is an American fast casual restaurant chain that serves "simple, seasonal, healthy food" and prides itself on having a transparent supply network and preparing their food in house. Each of their locations has character from their surrounding neighborhood through design of their exteriors and interiors. Sweetgreen also changes their menu four times a year to harmonize with the seasons.

Image: Sweetgreen

Price Point: affordable

Target Market: health-conscious design-forward young adults

Image: Uhuru Design

History: Founded in 2007, Sweetgreen has received funding support from the tech investors and expanded seamlessly since. Currently they have 71 locations and growing quickly in the East and West Coast markets, with stores now in Chicago.

Image: Pat Mazzera

Expansion Plans: They do plan to expand, but are non-franchise and "opting to grow the brand organically under our own management and leadership." 

Site Requirements: flexible and variable, 1,000 - 2,500 SF

Contact Info: Because they are non-franchise and seek to expand organically and sustainably, they encourage suggestions on their website of neighborhoods to expand.

Will Amazon Prime Restaurant kill the dining industry?

In 2015, Amazon started its slow roll out of Amazon Prime Restaurant in Seattle. Its food delivery service is unlike that of startup giants such as Grubhub and UberEats. The service has since quickly spread across a few markets including Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Diego, Austin, Atlanta, Miami, Baltimore, Portland, and of course New York City.

If you’re an Amazon Prime member in any one of these markets (and it’s highly likely you are since Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimated over 63 million Prime members in 2016), then 1-hour food delivery service is available to you with no delivery fee.

Furthermore, Amazon Prime Restaurants boasts only the best, quality local restaurants on its platform and claims to be assisting small businesses that have never entered home delivery services to finally enter the online delivery market. I was surprised myself when I finally opened Amazon Prime Restaurant on my couch last night and found Aita Trattoria on the list of restaurants delivering to my address. Aita’s is a local Italian restaurant in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn widely known for fresh, seasonal ingredients – which makes it quite the neighborhood dinner destination. I’ve lived in Brooklyn for almost four years now and have never been able to get a table without waiting 40 minutes so to find out that I can simply just click a button to order their delicious bucatini and wait in the comforts of my home was simply astounding. Furthermore, once an order has been placed, a nifty little feature on Amazon Restaurants allows you to track your delivery on a real time map so you’re not waiting cluelessly on your couch.

This discovery, while exciting, also led to me to worry around what this latest proliferation of Amazon’s services might do to the foot traffic in commercial corridors, and consequently the dining industry. Especially restaurants in neighborhood commercial corridors that mainly rely on local residents to eat out on weekends and weekday nights. After all, many of today’s commercial districts continue to be anchored by food and drinking places. Amazon, without even accounting for Amazon Restaurants and its sales, has already led to some decline in overall foot traffic. In fact, foot traffic fell by 32 percent among users of the Amazon App according to research firm Sense360, who also claim it’s been two full years since restaurants could report a decent traffic month.

Sure, restaurants still make up 15 percent of all retail sales and the expenditure data shows that U.S. consumers are spending more on dining in restaurants than on buying groceries but how much of these sales are actually made in person at the restaurant versus made online on the couch via Grubhub or Ubereats or Amazon Restaurants? Also, if the National Restaurant Association surveys are right and 8 in 10 consumers are dining out due to perceptions of convenience from not having to cook or clean up, then ordering more food online to be delivered within an hour to our doorstep would certainly fit the convenience criteria – especially if friends and family already live nearby and if the weather is bad outside. (I was certainly not going out to dinner last Saturday while the summer storms were in full swing.)

The proliferation of online delivery services for restaurants also means that the industry’s profit margins are getting smaller and smaller. As it is, real estate, labor and taxes already make up some of the largest share of operating a restaurant. Now, businesses will also have to worry about being charged by Amazon to deliver their food to stay-at-home customers. As Amazon has pledged not to mark up the cost of menu items, it is instead shifting the burden to restaurants in the form of an undisclosed percent charge of each order. Of course we already knew this – Grubhub, Postmates and Seamless all charge restaurants roughly 12-24 percent of checks to use their delivery services, however, Amazon is reportedly taking 27.5 percent of checks from partnered restaurants.

So while Amazon aims to keep the gap between diners’ cost of buying groceries and ‘restaurant dining’ minimal, small restaurants and eateries will bear the brunt of the costs with smaller profit margins and fewer people walking into their establishments and their neighbors’.

Food Glorious Food

Last week, my dad came into town and I managed to grab dinner with him in the Flatiron District. After dinner, however, my dad was craving cappuccino. But by 8:30pm all of my usual coffee spots were closed and I was at a lost. I did a quick search for something other than Starbucks in the area and chanced upon a Toby's Estate Coffee & Espresso on google maps, around the corner from where we were.

When we got to Toby's, we realized the cafe was part of an even larger retail concept which included an outpost of Strand Bookstore and Club Monaco. I can drink coffee, read a book and buy a dress- the full experience! As retailers continue to modify and adapt their store formats (especially in urban areas) to offer more than just products, food and drinks are fast becoming the go-to formula to introduce a unique experience to customers. By outsourcing these types of services to other businesses, as in the case of Toby's, retailers are also sharing rent burdens.

Last week, Fung Global Retail and Technology wrote a cool article summarizing the different types of food services found in many of London's stores. From cafes to sushi bars in Topshop and Selfridges, I decided to look for the New York equivalents and here are a few popular examples of food experiences in traditional store formats:

In the UK, food service has been shown to play an effective role in encouraging shoppers to “stay longer, spend longer”. Brits who eat during a shopping visit dwell on average 27 minutes longer, and spend 18% more per visit, according to property management firm JLL. In London—where many shoppers are more affluent and the choice of casual dining is countless—stores that offer foodservice can see shoppers dwell only 10% longer, but spend 38% more on average, according to Intelligent Business Systems.

If the same effects were to apply here in the US, retailers searching for ways to drive sales might be well off finding a food and beverage concept that aligns closely with the existing brand and products in-store. 

The Growth of Food Trucks

Food Truck Fest in Troy, NY (Photo: Townsquare Media)

Here at LOA we are paying close attention to food trends as this category continues to grow its share of overall consumer spending. Consumer dining habits are rapidly shifting as more and more spending is happening on meals outside the home than on buying groceries and eating in, according to the most recent expenditure data (Bureau of Economic Analysis, Q1 2016). In recent months, we’ve covered the new categorization of food services, and delved deeper into food hubs and food halls, but now it’s time to take a closer look at food trucks.

Food trucks are establishments primarily engaged in preparing and serving meals from a mobile truck. Food is normally prepared, stored and cooked on the truck and the truck may or may not use the same location every day. Today, there are over 4,000 food trucks across the nation. According to IBISWorld, a market research firm, from 2011 to 2016 industry revenue grew at an annual rate of 7.9% and in 2016 reached over $1.2 billion – and that’s why we’re paying attention to this industry.

NYC Food Truck (Photo: Sacha Fernandez)

Like full service restaurants and other eating places, food trucks can primarily be found in densely populated cities and regions. According to a Zagat survey from 2012, the most concentrated cities include New York (11.1% of industry establishments), Boston, Washington, DC, Miami, Houston, Austin, TX, Cleveland, Chicago, Portland, OR, and Los Angeles. The West and Mid-Atlantic are the most important regions for this industry, accounting for an estimated 25.2% and 23.3% of food trucks in 2016, respectively. As its popularity grows in Florida, the Southeast is also anticipated to account for a greater substantial share of food truck establishments.

Food trucks, however, were never this popular in the past. Early on in its inception, food trucks predominantly existed to serve the budget-strapped working class citizen searching for a cheap lunch deal. Trucks would be parked by construction sites and a hefty meal would cost no more than $6-8. Food trucks were also widely acknowledged by entrepreneurs as the quickest and most affordable way to break into the food business with low set-up, operating and licensing costs.

Today, the tables have turned. Food trucks are increasingly being used as promotional and marketing tools for established chefs, hotels, and restaurant brands. Bigger companies and national chains are using food trucks to service private events and music festivals just to get their name out there. Brian Pekarcik and Rick Stern, co-owners of Spoon and BRGR restaurants in Pittsburgh, launched a BRGR truck for that very reason. “As brand recognition, it's a great advertising piece,” they explained. “And we expect that it will drive customers to our restaurants.”

Food Trucks on parking lot in San Francisco, CA (Photo: Quinn Dombrowski)

And meals are not as cheap anymore because the trendy, young professional seeking new and gourmet food has now become a major customer segment in densely populated cities.  These changes are also reflected in successful sales locations for food trucks. In 2015, only 15% of food truck sales were made at industrial/ construction work sites versus 18% at venues and events, according to Mobile-Cuisine.Com.

Cities, however, are still trying to navigate this burgeoning industry. Some are implementing programs and policies in support of these small food businesses, while others are taking a protectionist approach by heavily regulating and hindering the growth of food truck operators for fear that they may take away sales of brick-and mortar restaurants and eateries. Others also blame mobile food trucks for congesting sidewalks and streets and diminishing the urban quality of life.

Food trucks outside restaurant in Cleveland, OH (Photo:E Little)

In Chicago, IL, for example, food trucks are being held back by regulations that prohibit them from setting up shop within 200 feet of a bricks and mortar restaurant or from parking in any one location for more than two hours. Bricks and mortar restaurants are often, if not always, located near the retail core of downtowns and near entertainment and leisure destinations where a considerable amount of foot traffic is already established. By disallowing food trucks from setting up in those areas, they may be pushed to peripheries of downtowns or less attractive streets where there isn’t a sufficient threshold of customers to break even. Also, in Chicago, where parking ratios are lower, food trucks would be hard pressed to find desirable parking spots quickly – resulting in lost critical sales hours. These restrictions and more have stifled the industry’s growth in Chicago at a 1:100 ratio of food truck to restaurants.

Food truck on Leather Lane, London UK (Photo: duncan c)

This defensive position, however, may be unfounded because the Bureau of Labour Statistics has found that counties that have experienced higher growth in mobile-food services have also had quicker growth in their restaurant and catering businesses. For example, in Seattle, the number of restaurants and surrounding King County has grown by 16% since 2010 in spite of a thriving food-truck scene. In Travis County, Texas, which includes Austin, the restaurant count has jumped 18% even as food trucks have increased more than six-fold. In fact, in Houston TX, restaurants have experienced increased business generated by food trucks parking nearby and drawing more people to the restaurants’ neighborhoods. Restaurant owners themselves have reportedly asked the Houston City Council to ease existing laws that make it difficult for food trucks to operate.

In other cities, parking laws and other ordinances are evolving to catch up with the industry’s transformation and although there is no one-size-fits-all solution, here are some best practices from around the country if you’re looking to take a supportive approach leaned towards fair ordinances that allow food truck vendors to flourish.

BEST PRACTICE: Austin, TX – Simple and non-prescriptive Food Truck Ordinance

In the City’s Zoning Ordinance, mobile food establishments, or food trucks, are permitted in all commercial and industrial zoning districts and are minimally restricted from operating between the hours of 3:00 am and 6:00 am. The distance restriction on operating a food truck near a restaurant is also very minimal at 20 feet, versus the 200 feet in Chicago.  In more residential neighborhoods, the City allows for neighborhood association areas to reasonably request further restrictions on the operations of food trucks to avoid noise and litter nuisances in predominantly more residential areas.  And that really is the end of the restrictions on food truck operations in the City.

BEST PRACTICE: Cincinnati, OH – Streamlined permitting process

Austin , TX and Cincinnati, OH are two cities that have streamlined and centralized their food truck permitting processes. This strategy lowers time and cost on the part of small business owners hoping to license their food trucks and start operating. Austin’s permitting web page has detachable forms and blank spots for the necessary signatures, with instructions regarding who to contact to obtain those signatures. On the same page, it also specifies the actual schematics of the truck components required for food preparation and handling safety, and best of all, nowhere does it suggest to refer to a subsection of the zoning code or statute not included in the document. Simplifying and making the process clear is crucial to encouraging food truck vendors.  Meanwhile in Ohio, the Cincinnati Department of Health is the only agency responsible for the city’s permitting process, application process, and payments associated with the city’s mobile food vending. Half the time, food truck vendors are required to submit applications to four or five different agencies and this process can become confusing for applicants.

Food Truck Thursday in Washington DC (Photo: Ted Eytan)

BEST PRACTICE: Washington DC – Mobile Roadway Vending Zones

Farragut Square, Washington DC, is now a vibrant outdoor food court since the city implemented Mobile Roadway Vending zones, or MRVs, in 2013 allowing trucks to vend for four continuous hours without breaking parking laws. The city rolled out eight MRVs that year, including ones at Farragut Square, Franklin Square, L’Enfant Plaza and Metro Center. 95 parking spots were made available in the MRVs and are handed out via a monthly lottery. These food trucks sell food at lunch hour to the thousands of workers in each district.

Food truck on private lot in Brooklyn NY (Photo: Jason Lam)

BEST PRACTICE: Portland, Oregon – Vacant Lots for food truck clusters

After a study in 2008 by researchers at Portland State University that concluded food carts benefited residents, the city began encouraging the use of vacant land for food-truck clusters or “pods”. The No-Vacancy guide explores temporary use of vacant space (including food truck vending!) and its applicability in the Central Eastside Industrial District. The guide shows property owners and food truck vendors how to navigate permitting and zoning processes in these scenarios.

Establish a pilot program!

If your downtown is still getting its feet wet in the food truck business, try implementing a pilot program to make informed decisions on what regulations to adopt in the future. Pilot programs are meant to test the waters and can very easily bring to light the issues that are unique to your community.  A small pilot program will also minimize any unintended impacts while still gleaning insight on what works and what doesn’t locally.

The City of Cambridge, whom we are currently consulting with on a citywide retail market strategy, launched a pilot program in 2011 that allowed permitted mobile food trucks to park in spots adjacent to riverfront parks. An initiative of the Community Development Department, the program was used to determine whether a future, permanent program should be implemented.  In the pilot, food truck vendors had to apply to participate in the program and spaces were leased on a week-by-week basis for a per-day fee.

By the end of the pilot, the City learned that the designated vending spots did not work for trucks. The City has selected low pedestrian traffic areas or times because it had wanted to activate these spaces, however it backfired on vendors who found they could not make their businesses financially viable in those areas. The City also learned quickly that a cluster of trucks needed to be marketed versus just one at each spot. Marketing and communicating to the customers that there were more than a single food option was found to be more effective.

With all the lessons learned, the City of Cambridge hopes to re-launch a new food truck program with policy improvements that were suggested by food truck operators.

Let us know if your city has an effective food truck program too!

For more examples, read NLC’s Food On Wheels Report: www.nlc.org/sites/default/files/RI_FoodTruckReport2013_final.pdfhttp:/www.nlc.org/sites/default/files/RI_FoodTruckReport2013_final.pdf

Institute for Justice’s Food-Truck Freedom Report:

http://ij.org/report/food-truck-freedom/

http://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/7-myths-and-realities.pdf

Urban Vitality Group and City of Portland’s Food Cartology Report:

www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/article/200738

A Response to APA17: The dangers of calling it a Modern Food Hall

One of the more popular sessions at the National Planning Conference last week was one titled “Modern Food Halls: Redevelopment Aid or Trend?” The panel discussion was led by Nicolia Robinson of Cooper Carry, an architecture, design and planning firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. Joined by her colleagues Sarah Jane Bonn and Daniel Sweeney, Nicolia led the discussion around one of the most talked-about trends in cities across the country. She opened the floor with a brief presentation on what the drivers of food halls were and attempted to distinguish them from what many of us recognize as food courts and markets.

Food Trends

In 2015, there were only 70 food halls across the nation. Last year, the panel cited that that number had risen quickly to 130, and by the end of 2017, we are expected to see more than 200 food halls across America.

This rapid growth in food halls, like restaurants, can be attributed to the rising trend of eating out amongst consumers. In an earlier post, we wrote about the fundamental and cross-generational shifts that have led to restaurant industry sales surpassing grocery sales for the first time in history. For food halls, the large proportion of millennials eating out more frequently is particularly driving its rapid growth and popularity.

On top of this, the panel claims that food halls are also meeting the needs of consumers who are seeking more “sophisticated and authentic flavors and experiences while dining out”. This has been echoed in recent media reports that claim consumers are “demanding more variety, better quality food while also seeming fatigued with the conventions and time investment of a multi-course, full-service meal” at traditional restaurants.

Defining Modern Food Halls

So what exactly is this food hall we’re all talking about? While the panel from Cooper Carry attempted to distinguish food halls from the traditional food court and market by delineating specific traits for each of these places, the lines began to blurry as they continued to dive deeper into case studies and examples. Before we begin to dissect the discussion around the definition of food halls, here are the characteristics the panelists attached to Food Courts, Markets and the newest hybrid, Food Halls:

Food Court	Market	Food Hall - Marries best of both food court and markets
Mostly national brands	Mostly local brands; mom and pop stalls	Both local and national brands (mostly local)
Fast food to fast casual	Ingredient-focused, produce-heavy stalls	Curated mix of tenants
Convenience		Plenty of gathering space (communal aspect)
Few retail options	Mostly Retail	Balanced retail and food

And here are the different ‘Scales and Types of Food Halls’ that have been observed by the panel:

Micro	Neighborhood	Destination
<10,000sf	10,000-30,000sf	30,000sf
Located in mixed use development, usually in difficult spaces to lease out to other operators

Food Halls

According to the panel, there are some key elements that make a food hall a food hall. First, there is often a heavily curated experience. The trouble with the ‘curated experience’ however has been that it is often targeted toward younger consumers that are more educated and have higher disposable incomes. After all, this is the demographic group choosing to live in urban, dense areas or in transit-oriented neighborhoods where these food halls are often located – key element number two.

Although this was not directly addressed by the panelists, several planners present in the room were rightfully wary of the implications of the food hall’s curated experience. Prices of meals at food halls, as one audience member noted, are often high compared to other available dining options. The noisiness and bustle of food halls also largely appeal to younger adults without children or elderly companions.

Panelists also noted that another key element is the detailed attention often paid to branding food halls as modern amenities and advertising them on social media. This seems troubling as it necessarily excludes certain groups of users from food halls, for example traditional older customers or non- English-speaking customers.

Finally, food halls are supposed to have a variety of authentic tenants. Although this was not clearly explained in the session, I would hazard a guess that this was in reference to locally-owned businesses with new food concepts.

There appear to be a number of problems or inconsistencies with the food hall as defined at the session. In fact, when the floor opened for discussion, many in the audience jumped at the opportunity to ask about the foreseeable economic and social impacts of food halls that was not addressed in the presentation. Issues raised by audience members included insufficient parking and seating space for large crowds, and finally, the elephant in the room – who are food halls for?

In response to crowded spaces, Daniel Sweeney quipped that while seating can be hard to find in these popular food halls, this can in fact be beneficial to vendors. The busyness of the food hall creates a vibrant atmosphere for visitors and makes the food hall appear to thrive.

 

However, when must the line be drawn before the crowds begin to cause discomfort for regular patrons, forcing them to find alternative options and potentially resulting in drop of sales for vendors?

In fact, Chelsea Market here in New York City already suffers this shortfall. As soon as the food hall began to primarily serve tourists and attracted crowds of out-of-towners (over 6 million national and international visitors annually), locals no longer found the shopping environment conducive for daily  needs. Today, many locals intentionally avoid this former neighborhood jaunt. It appears as though food halls run the risk of becoming a visitor attraction rather than a local neighborhood amenity. This very issue raised red flags for me when the panelists started to use Essex Street Market as a case study of a neighborhood food hall.

The Problem with the Food Hall Label

In the past few months, LOA has been working with the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) to create a tenanting and marketing strategy for Essex Street Market as it prepares to relocate to a new facility across Delancey Street. LOA developed a strategic market positioning statement for Essex Market that defined key customer segments before recommending strategies for attracting new tenants and vendors.

Essex Market is, by definition, a public market owned and managed by NYC EDC. It is not a food hall, nor does it aspire to be one. The market is New York City’s oldest public market following Mayor La Guardia’s efforts in the 1930s to clear the city’s streets of pushcarts and build a network of modern indoor public markets. For more than 75 years, Essex Market has been a fixture in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and an important source of affordable products for local shoppers, from Latino and Asian immigrants, to the new millennials who have recently began moving into the neighborhood.

The mission of the market remains to serve the needs of low and moderate income residents in the neighborhood and this can be observed by the mix of tenants at the market. Vendors such as Saxelby Cheese Mongers and Essex Farm Fruits and Vegetable for example accept EBT and offer products at low price points. Even as the market expands in size at its new facility, prepared foods vendors will remain a small percentage of the overall market tenant mix. Ingredients-based purveyors will continue to make up over 70% of the market, including specialty ingredients such as fresh coffee beans, American cheeses and traditional spices.

In addition, NYCEDC and the Essex Market management team, will continue to remain committed to scouting hyper local vendors to fill the remaining spaces at the new facility with preference given to vendor applicants offering farm-related or ingredients-based products. These tenanting strategies are intended to maintain Essex Market’s position as a public market with retail that contributes to the local community’s wellness through fresh, affordable food.

Although the panel had intended on showing the audience a positive example of a publicly-managed neighborhood food hall, they may have taken a leap altogether in labeling Essex Market a food hall. Let’s take a look at the criteria set by the panel for food halls and how Essex Market doesn’t quite meet them:

Food Hall	Essex Market
Both local and national brands (mostly local)	No national brands
Curated mix of tenants	Curated to the extent that EDC is maintaining 70% ingredients-focused, produce-heavy purveyors
Plenty of gathering space (communal aspect)	Yes in the new facility
Balanced retail and food	No - 70% ingredients-based retail

Given that there are already some implications associated with food halls, we need to be careful with the way we use the label. In a previous post on food-based developments, we began to explore some of these negative impacts.

“…when food-based developments do not serve the wider community, it stands to run into accusations of causing gentrification and rising property values. In Anaheim, California, where a former fruit packing and distribution center was transformed into a food hall dedicated to local vendors, it has quickly evolved into  a selling feature for new residential developments in the neighborhood. Broookfield Residential for example is hoping to “attract young buyers with units priced between $300,000 and $400,000” in a neighborhood that was once a sleepy town known only for Disneyland. Whether intended or not, the Packing House food hall in Anaheim has led to huge inflow of development into the neighborhood, raising prices of property in the area.

Furthermore, food halls that only serve ready-made meals or chef-made meals are often too upscale for the average customer. While they may help fill gaps in a food desert, prices often prevent lower income bracket groups from accessing these freshly-made and locally-grown foods since most prepared foods are not even eligible for SNAP benefits.”

For all of the benefits food halls claim to have as incubators for small, local businesses and chefs, there are plenty of other players in the industry that are simply abusing the trendy name for profit’s sake. Let's not call it a food hall, if it’s really a market or a food court.