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Between A La Mode in Syracuse and The Deli Downtown in Cortland, restaurant owner Jeanne Catalfano had lots of events to cater. But every time she went to an event, she had to go through the tedious process of setting up tents, tables and chairs.

So she bought a trailer, wrapped it and outfitted it to sell mobile meals.

“We basically found an easier way to do the events we had already been doing,” Catalfano said.

In 2015, she opened her food truck The Bite Box. At the time, the Syracuse Food Truck Association had just three members. Catalfano joined, became a board member and has since seen the SFTA grow to around 40 current members.

Thanks to legislation that allows food trucks to operate in more locations, partnerships with local breweries and events organized by the SFTA, food trucks’ popularity in Syracuse has increased dramatically, Catalfano said.

On Sept. 25, 2021, the SFTA held its largest event yet, the first Food Truck Battle at the New York State Fair. The SFTA paired over 35 trucks from central New York with live music, a beer and wine area, a kids’ zone, craft vendors and games.

Each food truck offered samples that cost between $3 and $5, which allowed the customers to try a variety of different trucks. The event was a massive success and shows how powerful food trucks can be when working together, said Nick Sanford, owner of Toss & Fire Wood-Fired Pizza and president of the SFTA.

“We’ve always had the mindset that we’re better working together as a group than solo. Bringing more trucks to an event — different types of food — it just brings more people,” Sanford said. “People are excited to come. They can come with friends, they can all get different things, and they can share and try different things … It’s almost like a food court for food trucks.”

The SFTA also partners with breweries across the Syracuse area and has found the relationship to be mutually beneficial for both parties. The breweries attract customers with the presence of the food truck — and sometimes live music — and the food truck feeds the breweries’ hungry customers.

After the pandemic hit and indoor dining faced restrictions, restaurant owners searched for any possible way to get their food to their customers. After receiving a $10,000 loan from Syracuse in part to purchase a food truck, Matt Godard used it to bring in revenue any way he could.

“I got a food truck and just had that out everyday where I was allowed to sell coffee,” said Godard, the owner of the Syracuse-based coffee shop Cafe Kubal.

StreetFoodFinder, an app that was initially a website built to help food trucks post their schedule and locations, added online ordering to its platform around a year before the pandemic and helped food truck associations across the country such as the SFTA serve their customers throughout the pandemic.

“If we didn’t have StreetFoodFinder, I don’t know that food trucks would have had as successful of a season last year because they made it possible for people to feel safe to come to food trucks,” Catalfano said.

Feedback from Syracuse food truck owners keyed essential nationwide improvements of StreetFoodFinder.

“We talked directly to a lot of the trucks in Syracuse and around the country to get their feedback on what issues they were having, what we could make easier, what were they facing with COVID, and then we basically customized it for the food trucks and for dealing with COVID specifically,” said Nik Gandhy, founder of StreetFoodFinder.

Jay Cartini and other food truck drivers hope to educate customers that food trucks are not “roach coaches” like they used to be thought of.
Courtesy of Jay Cartini

The SFTA now uses StreetFoodFinder for everything from scheduling trucks at specific locations and events to the organization’s membership application itself.

Although many food trucks operate alongside a brick-and-mortar restaurant, others are independent of any established restaurant. While difficult without recognition, Sanford said food trucks are often the first step to a brick-and-mortar location.

When Sanford started Toss & Fire Pizza in April 2015, he had no brick-and-mortar restaurants. But in less than seven years, he has transformed Toss & Fire Pizza from a singular pull-behind trailer to two restaurants and multiple food trucks.

Many of the costs associated with restaurants such as rent, utilities and employee wages are either significantly lower or nonexistent for those who own just a food truck, Jay Cartini, owner of Carvel DeWitt and a board member of the SFTA, said.

Owners without a brick-and-mortar restaurant, however, are susceptible to selling out of their product more quickly than expected or being stuck with extra product, Cartini said. If a festival has lower-than-expected turnout or is canceled, a food truck without a restaurant may be stranded with hundreds of prepared meals that they can’t sell or store.

“If I have leftover ice cream, I can just bring it back to the store,” Cartini said. “If you have leftover whatever and you don’t have a store to bring it back to, what do you do with it? You’re constantly playing a guessing game as to ‘how much food do I prepare?’”

Although running a food truck is less of a commitment than a restaurant, it still requires the administrative skills that are needed in any business, Cartini said. The SFTA assists with helping new food truck owners on the administrative side of their operations, especially since many food truck owners without a restaurant attached are first-time business owners.

While the SFTA has been successful in holding events in Syracuse’s suburbs, food trucks face additional obstacles within the city of Syracuse. Catalfano said most of the SFTA’s members don’t do street vending because of unreliable business and the costs of serving on public property. Food truck owners have to purchase a permit to do business in downtown Syracuse, but often the only parking spots they’re allowed to park in are taken by other vehicles, Cartini said.

Through its events, the SFTA tries to dispel the stigma that food trucks are less clean and produce worse food than brick-and-mortar restaurants. Food trucks are generally inspected five to 10 times as much as restaurants, and many food truck chefs are professionally trained, Sanford said.

“We’re educating the consumer as well, that these are not ‘roach coaches’ like they used to be referred to decades ago. These are far from it,” Cartini said.

Although neighborhood food truck events have dissipated since the early stages of the pandemic, food trucks across the Syracuse area are available for private events, which became especially popular during the pandemic. The SFTA is constantly looking for new ways to reach customers and has already planned its next Food Truck Battle for May 2022.

“If you limit yourself to what you can do within the four walls, you’re really limiting yourself,” Cartini said.

Published on January 25, 2022 at 12:52 am

Contact Connor: cpignate@syr.edu