A food cart is a mobile kitchen

Mobile catering

Mobile catering is the business of selling prepared food from some sort of vehicle. It is a feature of urban culture in many countries.- Variants :...

 that is set up on the street to facilitate the sale and marketing of street food

Street food

Street food is ready-to-eat food or drink sold in a street or other public place, such as a market or fair, by a hawker or vendor, often from a portable stall. While some street foods are regional, many are not, having spread beyond their region of origin. Most street food are both finger and fast...

 to people from the local pedestrian

Pedestrian

A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In some communities, those traveling using roller skates or skateboards are also considered to be pedestrians. In modern times, the term mostly refers to someone walking on a road or footpath, but this was not the case...

 traffic. Food carts are often found in large cities throughout the world and can be found selling food of just about any variety.

Food carts come in two basic styles. One allows the vendor to sit or stand inside and serve food through a window. Another uses all of the room inside the cart for storage and to house the cooking machinery, usually some type of grilling surface. The cart style is determined principally by the type of food served at the cart.

Food carts are different from food truck

Food truck

A food truck, mobile kitchen, mobile canteen, or catering truck is a mobile venue that sells food. Some, including ice cream trucks, sell mostly frozen or prepackaged food; others are more like restaurants-on-wheels...

s because they do not travel under their own power. Some food carts are towed by another vehicle, while some alternatively are pushed by a human.

Portland's food carts

In the United States, the city of Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

 has recently experienced a boom in the number of food carts, trailers and stands, and currently has about 450 carts citywide. As explained on the website foodcartsportland.com:

Portland has a proliferation of Food Carts and they seem to be growing in numbers and locations. Some might call them lunch wagons, taco trucks or even snack shacks, but whatever you call them, they are truly a phenomenon in Portland. Set up in parking lots, sidewalks, and even parks (sometimes in large groups and sometimes solo), one might nosh on a fresh tortilla Baja fish taco one day, a rib-sticking bowl of traditional goulash the next, have a coffee and pastry for an afternoon snack, and then take home a giant Indian combo box for dinner."

A 2001 report in The Oregonian

The Oregonian

The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...

stated Portland was home to 175 carts, with fierce competition for the four cart spaces available since 1987 in the South Park Blocks

South Park Blocks

The South Park Blocks form a city park in downtown Portland, Oregon. The Oregonian has called it Portland's "extended family room", as Pioneer Courthouse Square is known as Portland's "living room"....

. A bidding war in February 2001 led for a combined price of $192,000 for the spaces. There was also a large cluster at Fifth and Stark street, and one food cart had been running since 1980.

On May 10, 2009, Matt Gross of The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

wrote in his Frugal Traveler column, "there are almost 400 carts around Portland, most of them clustered into 'pods' that ring parking lots, and thanks to low start-up costs and Multnomah County's straightforward licensing and inspection regime, aspiring chefs can make their names without major investments. As a New Yorker I was jealous; as the Frugal Traveler, overjoyed at what I could find within a single pod..."

The majority of the food carts in Portland are constructed and maintained by their owners who impart their own artistic style in the design and decoration of the food carts. The vast majority are set up to meet food service standards although some have the appearance (and menu) of third world hovels. That, however has become a part of the extremely popular character of the food carts even in downtown Portland where the city provided electrical power to the carts, but not much in the realm of water service or drainage. Most of the kitchens involve a mix of technology and components borrowed from the RV industry, restaurant grade equipment and household grade kitchen equipment. Some have proven to be successful in their own right, others have served as a springboard for chefs who want a quick start upon graduating from culinary school since investors are often available to help a chef get started in a food cart much more easily than those willing to front the startup money for a restaurant.

Economic factors which have contributed to the ongoing success of the food cart business in downtown Portland Oregon include:

• The overall economic downturn in Oregon starting in the early 2000s has caused the local "foodies" to explore lower cost culinary options in a business climate where restaurants have traditionally been very popular.
• Construction materials and restaurant equipment is cheaper than most other major cities due to the fact that Portland Oregon is the only major city in the USA without a sales tax. On top of that, there are several construction material recycle businesses which help provide materials for the construction and modification of the food carts very cheaply compared to new materials, and more cost effectively for the non-professional in other states which have a sales tax charged to non-professionals on construction materials and kitchen equipment.
• City enforcement and economic interests in these businesses primarily surround the collection of rent money on space in city owned lots, utility payments, and regulatory licenses, not the more complex and abusive sales tax systems found in other municipal areas. This has led to many casual arrangements between food cart workers, owners and shared cooperatives where the formality of extensive licensing and enforcement of tax regulations that would stifle the business are not used against small entrepreneurs in Portland, where businesses turning over less than $20K in annuals sales require less licensing. That element of easy regulation provides needed "get on the feet" time for new start ups which in other metropolitan areas must pay much more tax and permit money as an up front cost.
• Several culinary schools operate in the Portland Metropolitan area, which provides a steady supply of highly qualified chefs who are seeking entry into the restaurant business and see the food carts as a cost effective option which offers flexibility and self ownership in the early stages of involvement.
• Oregon is a farming state, which means close proximity and low costs to ingredients which normally cost more in other metropolitan areas.
• The food carts have become their own tourist attraction, often for cost conscious tourists from other parts of the Pacific Northwest, but recent improvements in Portland's downtown business and retail districts have brought more cost conscious international tourism due to the declining price of US dollars compared to other common currencies. The styling of Portland's downtown area has followed that of New York and San-Francisco, although on a smaller scale and at lower cost. Geographic and traffic limitations have contributed to the improvement and preservation of downtown in Portland while urban sprawl is limited to the outlying areas.
• City planners have been forced by the extreme popularity of these businesses to allow their continued operation in developed areas, a sympathy not shared by city planners in other places.
• The climate in Portland is particularly inviting to outdoor food vending and frequent eating. Long summer days are often "four to five meal days" for local residents, and winters are rainy but otherwise mild, year round temperatures lack the extremes found on cities further north in Washington or south in California where the weather extremes often force people to need to go indoors.
• Very high levels of ethnic and cultural tolerance in the City of Portland helps cultivate the international flavor of most of the food courts, with none being staked out as the exclusive "turf" of any particular ethnic group. The incentive being that the larger and more diverse the cluster is, the more financially successful individual cart owners will be, so heated recruitment of new vendors at new locations trumps most issues of race, ethnicity, religion or social practices.
• Municipal investment in foot traffic infrastructure and a rail-based mass transit system along with a lack of improvements in the road systems has provided an environment not particularly usable by the traditional fast food restaurants for drive-through services. Most of the food carts are set up in a "walk up" format within two miles of downtown while those situated in the more outlaying areas will have their own small parking lots.
• Menu prices at the food carts are extremely competitive with fast food. Nearly all full meals at the carts are typically under $7 with many items in the $2 to $5 range which is even affordable to low wage workers and the homeless, although the best and most concentrated areas where food carts are located require paid for for parking at $5 per hour, fast food places situated in those same areas also lack parking and drive through windows.

Restaurant affiliations

Some food carts are associated with restaurants. Most of the food served from the cart is the same as the food in the restaurant.

The structure of food carts have recently seen new changes like modular designed carts made with stainless steel, fiber reinforced plastic and aluminum. Some have been developed with the ability to be driven by itself.