Ms. Cheezious paid the Grove a visit last week

Adam, Brian and Tiffany, of Ms. Cheezious, the gourmet grilled cheese truck was in the Grove last Friday. A local business arranged for them to stop by for a few hours. Is this a good idea? What do the restaurants think? I think the time has come to make room for the trucks.

First off, let me say this, the line was quite large, Crispin-Porter the ad agency arranged the truck and they and Sony employees, both with offices in Mayfair took big advantage of the cheesy goodness. And as someone said to me later in the day, if the Grove restaurants had what people wanted, the people would not be lining up for the grilled cheese.

But to be fair, this is something new and a novelty and this is where I think the trucks are a good thing. Someone from Crispin-Porter told me that Coral Gables is always wooing them to not only move their business there but to have lunch there and the employees are looking for something different for lunch every day, if it wasn't for the time consumed running to Coral Gables for lunch, they would all probably do it, just for a change.

The gourmet truck last week gave the employees a break and on top of that, it brought in people to the Grove who follow the truck through Twitter. Now it would have been perfect if the truck was more in the center of town and not on a back street because then the people who did come to town for the truck might have checked out the village. But originally the truck was supposed to park in the Mayfair Promenade, but they found that it was too heavy for that area, so at the last minute, they parked in back of the building.

I spoke with the Ms. Cheezious crew, I spoke with Crispin-Porter and I spoke with local restaurants and local citizens. For the most part, everyone feels that this is the new thing now and there is no turning back. The gourmet food trucks are here to stay, they have city permits and other licenses to do business, so they need to be able to do business. But where?

Crispen-Porter felt it was a treat for their employees. Local restaurants like the trucks but feel threatened. Some told me that since Coconut Grove is in a special entertainment district, there are strict regulations and permits that restaurants have that the trucks don't. One restaurant owner said he was all for the removal of the Grove being a special district and just open it for the trucks and the restaurants who would not have so many restrictions.

As for the locals, they loved the truck, too. Not many partook because they didn't see it on the back street, but they liked the change of pace when it came to the restaurant scene around here.

Here's a past article on my food truck idea. I think they can help businesses, rather than harm businesses.