A new Mexican food truck is coming soon to DC, named Kalaveras!  I am still waiting on more details from the owner, but got their page started here.

Thanks to FTF reader, Kevin, for letting us know about Kabob King!  They have been serving exclusively in the Van Ness / Friendship Heights area this month and are now being tracked on FTF!  They have a mixed menu including lamb/chicken/steak kabobs as well as cheesesteaks, fried shrimp and chicken tenders.

Hot off the presses, by way of the DMV Food Truck Association:

Food Trucks Launch Grassroots Effort to Lift Alexandria Ban

Food Trucks Are Almost Completely Illegal in Alexandria, Including on Private Property

 ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA – The DMV Food Truck Association today launched Alexandria Hearts Food Trucks, a grassroots effort to lift the city’s ban on food trucks.

The website, www.AlexandriaFoodTrucks.org, features food trucks facts, top 10 myths and highlights food trucks’ role as small business incubators and job multipliers.

“In addition to offering exciting and delicious lunchtime choices, food trucks help to make vibrant communities and contribute to the local economy,” said Doug Povich, chairman of the DMV Food Truck Association. “But, unlike their neighbors in Arlington and DC, Alexandria residents cannot enjoy these and other benefits that food trucks provide.”

Food trucks are illegal in Alexandria with the exception of construction sites and permitted special events, Povich said, adding that several food truck association members are Alexandria residents or have brick-and-mortar kitchens in Alexandria.

The city last year formed a food truck task force to examine ways to lift the ban.

“We’re grateful to the City of Alexandria’s food truck task force for exploring ways to lift the city’s ban on food trucks, and we appreciate the opportunity to be a participant on the task force, “ Povich said. “The information on www.AlexandriaFoodTrucks.org is a great compliment to the task force’s work.”

 

The DMV Food Truck Association is a group of more than 70 local food truck owner-operators. We seek to sustain the wellbeing of our industry, foster a sense of community and work in partnership to improve food truck regulations. We are engaged community members who deeply care about our city and believe in working together to make a positive impact.

The Astro Doughnuts & Fried Chicken brick & mortar shop, located at (1308 G St NW), has launched a food truck starting today! (1/16)  They appear to be permitted in Arlington at the moment and will open their window in Ballston today.  The marginally legible copy of the menu is here. 🙂

Photo courtesy of Astro’s Twitter feed

Here are some news updates for this week of DC food truck action:

• BBQ Bus serving special pot pie this week! (more info below)
• Pars Kabob is now tweeting for 2 trucks
• Friendship Heights continues to attract food trucks, with Kimchi BBQ and Saffron serving today

BBQ Bus special Pot Pie
BBQ Bus is entering a time of the year (the cold of winter) when they dish out specials for just one week at a time. (Guiness-brasied beef stew, BBQ bacon meatloaf, etc.) Today and Friday Tadd is serving an absolute favorite: Chicken pot pie. It’s based on a recipe his grandfather used to prepare in his restaurant in Tampa. It’s served over browned-butter mashed potatoes and topped with a buttermilk cornmeal biscuit instead of pie crust.

Enjoy!

This past December, a flower truck started serving various locations in the District, courtesy of Saivita Floral Design (located in Arlington).  I have received word from the owner that they entered and won spots in DCRA’s lottery this January.  While the truck wrap design is still in development, the white-colored flower truck is in action today at Farragut Sq.

My burning question: do readers want this truck to be mapped on FTF and in the mobile apps, even though their product isn’t normally ingested? 🙂  Leave a comment below (or tweet me)!

It took a little bit of work, but I am now mapping trucks’ scheduled serving locations based on the monthly DCRA lottery results.  As the Food Truck Fiesta map resets every night, the next day’s scheduled locations will automatically show up on the map.  In the next couple of days, I will make some more changes where the icons of trucks in scheduled locations will be slightly transparent (like a ghost image).  If/when the truck tweets their location for real that day, the icon will become fully opaque as an indicator that they are confirmed to be serving that day.

As always, please email or tweet me if you have any questions or suggestions!  🙂 -Kyle

Happy New Year!

UPDATE (10:14am): It looks like many trucks are still on vacation today (1/2/2014), so I’ve removed today’s scheduled locations from the map to give a more realistic view of who is serving today.  As of 10:14am, there were 63 scheduled locations that have not been confirmed by tweets, which is over half of the lottery spots for today.

Senor Taco started announcing serving locations in December 2013.  Their Mexican menu consists of tacos, burritos and quesadillas, as well as a daily soup.  Photos of the truck and menu are on their page!

I just wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday!  I’m pausing the daily 11am email list until later this week, or after the 1st, depending on how many trucks I see serving. 🙂

January will be more interesting than December as it is the 2nd month of the DCRA lottery and there are less holidays, so more trucks will be making the most of their days.  From the tweets I’ve read, the schedules assigned to some trucks for January have become thinner, meaning that some trucks are only assigned spots during 3 of 5 days a week.  The positive side of things is that trucks are definitely finding alternative spots to serve that are outside of the 8 sites that are reserved.

See you in 2014! 🙂

Sweetbites announced the following on their Twitter account this morning:

And now for our big news!! We’ll be opening our brick-and-mortar cafe in the Spring of 2014 at 6845 Elm St, McLean VA!! We are so excited!!