Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Food cart vs. food truck at Union Square

As EV Grieve reader Blue Glass details in the photos below.... the new Souvlaki GR truck took up a spot on the west side of Union Square just above 14th Street yesterday...




This did not go over well with the hot dog vendors. They moved their carts to partially block the truck... and the carts were positioned in such a way that the hot dog/pretzel smoke would flow into the truck...



Regardless, people were still ordering food from the Souvlaki truck, which angered the hot dog vendor with the red shirt....

Eventually he exchanged angry words with the Souvlaki truck owner...



...and made faces at our photographer....




...despite the circumstances (like the hot dog guy yelling and making noise so people couldn't hear the orders at the Souvlaki truck), Blue Glass says the Souvlaki workers kept their cool....


As Blue Glass notes, "There is room for everybody."

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I went down there last night to the souvlaki truck and those guys blocking them were being ridiculous. The guy in the red shirt was banging his cart making a genuine nuisance of himself and irritating anyone in that area. who would buy from such a character anyway. I don't know what he was hoping to achieve.

Anonymous said...

These food trucks have MOBILE Food Vending licenses. They are not allowed to be parked at one spot all day, usurping precious parking spots that others need to use and/or blocking the flow of traffic all day long.

The hot dog guys may be obnoxious, at least they aren't breaking the law like the truck is.

blue glass said...

the guy in the blue shirt, the last picture, was the second cart vendor blocking the souvlaki truck. while also a jerk he was not as obnoxious as the guy in the red shirt, and he was quietly watching what went on after he and red shirt carefully positioned their carts to block the truck.

everyone should tell these folks how foolish they are, and that they will only hurt their own business - if they are there today.

Laura Goggin Photography said...

Silly behavior aside, the hot dog carts have licenses for a particular spot, so they cannot just up and move. The truck, however, can and it seems to me the truck was just instigating some drama. If it drew customers, I guess it worked.

Anonymous said...

The hot dog cart guys are idiots and they're selling crap I wouldn't dare to ingest. It's just as bad as McDonald's.

Anonymous said...

Finally, great souvlaki has been made accessible to the people of NYC. It was a bit frustrating seeing the hot dog vendors cause such a scene in front of the souvlaki truck...it was completely immature for grown adults to act in such a manner. Push trucks- get "outta" town!

prodigal son said...

The hot dogs didn't use to be so bad. I can remember a time when a cheap light lunch was a hot dog from a street cart. I agree that now the stuff is inedible.

Something similar happened with New York pizza. The problem is that all these guys use the same supplier, and instead of raising prices the supplier cut costs on ingredients.

This is one case where I'm not too upset because the halal food trucks that are replacing the hot dog carts (and make no mistake, the hot dog carts are on their way out) and pizza counters as cheap lunch places are much healthier. But they are not quite as cheap and can vary greatly in quality.

Anonymous said...

anon4:28 - let us know where you're finding hot dogs as "bad" as McDonald's. I'd love to know! McDonald's, though "crap" and "unhealthy", is delicious!!!

blue glass said...

googla says: "seems to me the truck was just instigating some drama. If it drew customers, I guess it worked"
no it didn't work, it just discouraged customers away from the hot-dog-guys because of their behavior.
the truck folks were totally surprised by being fenced in and were calm and dignified while under attack. they did NOT draw customers - people came because they saw a new truck or had heard about it. nobody appreciated the hot-dog-guys behavior.
the police did come (on their own?) and moved the hot-dog-goys.
THERE IS ROOM FOR EVERYBODY.
the quality of the food will determine where people shop, not crude behavior.

Anonymous said...

Anon: 9:27 p.m. I'm with you on McDonald's being delicious. Horrible for you but dee-licious! That's why it is so hard to resist. When I said "bad," I meant bad as in unhealthy. As you may already know, Mickey D's and those hot dogs from the carts are basically poison. It's this kind of food that's keeping Americans nice and fat and full of preventable disease.