Portland's Food Truck Heaven: How a New Kind of Fast Food Brings Jobs, Flavor, and Walkability [View all]

[marmar]

from YES! magazine:


Portland's Food Truck Heaven: How a New Kind of Fast Food Brings Jobs, Flavor, and Walkability
Immigrants and other restaurant workers get a way to rise in local economies. Communities get the best fast food they've ever had.

by Abby Quillen
posted Jan 17, 2014




At noon on a sunny day in Portland, Ore., in what not long ago was a vacant lot, customers roam past brightly painted food carts perusing menus for vegan barbeque, Southern food, Korean-Mexican fusion, and freshly squeezed juice.

The smell of fried food and the tent-covered seating bring to mind a carnival, but a number of Portland's food carts take a healthy approach to street food. The Big Egg, for instance, serves sandwiches and wraps made with organic farm-fresh eggs, balsamic caramelized onions, and arugula. Their to-go containers are compostable, and next to the order window is a list of local farms where they source their ingredients.

"We don't have a can opener. We make everything ourselves, so it's very time-consuming. And that's the way we want it," says Gail Buchanan, who runs The Big Egg with her partner, Emily D. Morehead.

The Big Egg usually sells out, says Buchanan as she hands a customer the last sandwich of the day, one made with savory portobello mushrooms. And on weekends, customers form a line down the block, willing to wait up to 45 minutes for their food. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/how-to-eat-like-our-lives-depend-on-it/portland-s-food-truck-heaven