My gourmet food truck idea

I was talking about the gourmet food trucks that have taken over the country. Miami has a very large fleet of them. Los Angeles has over 100, they are gourmet restaurants on wheels, each serving a specialty food.

We visited The Fish Box for lunch the other day, they had set up at Grove Harbour Marina, right back along the water's edge and people found them.

The way these trucks work is that they mostly Tweet out their locations to their followers. While in the past, we have had problems with the dingy type roach coach lunch trucks, these gourmet trucks don't take business from areas, they actually bring business. The Latin Burger is almost a fixture at the Shell Lumber parking lot at least once a week.


From left: Eberto Cruz, Aimee Pedierne and Hosana Gonzalez served up all sorts of fish sandwiches from The Fish Box. They have their famous "Minuta Sandwich," which was yellowtail that day, for $5.00. There's fried calamari, shrimp salad and lobster salad to name just a few of their items.

I have spoken with people about getting the trucks into the village, I've mentioned it here before and total strangers have come up to me to offer the idea for the Grove. The best time seems to be at night, I had thought of lunchtime, but dinner seems to be best because people will come out, eat at the trucks and usually stick around to shop, stroll and maybe check an art gallery or two out and go to the movies. So they will make a night of it once they are here.


Owner of The Fish Box David Garcia is sold on Coconut Grove. He would love to be here on a regular basis.

The plan is to set up a "food court" which is very common with the gourmet trucks. They have done this all over the county, this is when a bunch set up for a few hours. Picture a place like the Mayfair Promenade, on a Friday or Saturday night, maybe once a month, with maybe seven trucks. They will bring their followers from outside the Grove -- these are people who would not be in the Grove ordinarily, so we are not taking business from existing restaurants, they are literally bringing bodies into the area. And then, like I said, in turn, hopefully the bodies will stick around to see what else is in the area -- the movies, the galleries, the antique market, and so on.

We need to work this out with the restaurants so that they don't feel threatened, because honestly, they shouldn't. It's not about taking their business, it's about bringing outsiders to the Grove, people who follow the gourmet trucks like a cult, people who would not be here otherwise.

Reuters has an article on How to Start a Food Truck Business here.


This is The Fish Box's Yellow Tail sandwich.