Japanese and Korean bento boxes will be served up by Tokyo In The City (from the markers of Wassub) today at Metro Center (approx. 12th & G St NW)!

Red Hook Lobster Pound and That Cheesecake are serving at 14th & D St NW today! The full press release:

Food Trucks to Serve at 14th and D Streets NW for Next Three Weeks

WASHINGTON, D.C.– DC’s hottest new lunch spot is somewhere you might not expect: The John A. Wilson Building.Starting today and continuing for the next three weeks, a different member of the Food Truck Association will be serving Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays during lunchtime at 14th and D Streets NW.

The three-week program was organized in partnership with the DC City Council and the Food Truck Association.

“Serving lunch at the Wilson Building is another example of Food Truck Association members serving freshly made, affordable meals to all areas of the District,” said Che Ruddell-Tabisola, Executive Director of the DC Food Trucks Association. “We’ve organized similar successful food truck programs with the Department of Employment Services and the Department of Housing and Community Development – now it’s the Wilson Building’s turn!”

The DC Food Truck Association published a press release regarding the Mayor’s proposed new food truck regulations released on Oct 5.  The trucks had a meeting with DDOT on Monday (here is a great write-up on that meeting by the Washington Post), and from the sound of it, things didn’t go very well.  The major issues being that 1) the regulations give DDOT the authority to dictate how many and where food trucks would be able to operate, and 2) the regulations are too vague and would be open to enforcement abuse.

Here is the full release:

Mayor Gray Proposal Threatens Food Trucks Downtown

Proposed Regulations Would Hurt District Residents and Workers

By Limiting Choice and Competition

If Mayor Vincent Gray’s proposed new food truck regulations were adopted they would threaten food trucks throughout downtown, the Food Truck Association said today.

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WRGW District Radio is holding another Truckapalooza event tomorrow (Oct 19, 11am-2pm) between 20th & 21st on H St NW in Foggy Bottom!  Here is the Facebook event link.  There will be 20+ food trucks parked at GWU and WRGW will also host some ticket giveaways to Wiz Khalifa and Mike Snow shows.

You may have noticed that Tasty Fried got a sister a few days ago, named HenHouse!  The chicken and seafood menu is identical and is from the same parent company.  They are now being tracked on the map.  Here are more details + menu!

The Roving Italian is set to debut at NVCC Loudoun Campus (No. Va. Community College) from 11 am-2 pm tomorrow (10/17)!  Exact menu details have yet to be published, but look for modern Italian street fare, including meatballs.

Photo courtesy of Roving Italian’s FB page

This is mostly a notice for all DC food truck operators to attend an important meeting on Monday. 🙂

Subject: Department of Transportation and
Food Truck (Mobile Roadway) Vendors Meeting
 
6 pm
Monday, October 15
Department of Transportation
55 M Street SE
Fourth Floor, Room 439
Washington, DC 20003

The DC Department of Transportation is meeting with Food Truck (Mobile Roadway) Vendors to discuss proposed changes in vending regulations.
 
Contact Alice Kelly at DDOT with questions at alice.kelly@dc.gov.
 
More information about proposed changes in vending regulations can be found at http://ow.ly/eoopq.

Many of you many have noticed that some truck names turn gray in color on the sidebar list.  This is automatically done when the truck hasn’t tweeted for several days and it should help us all recognize when a truck is on vacation or if it decided to stop serving altogether.  The truck names go back to maroon in color as soon as they start tweeting again.

Some trucks have stopped serving for almost 1 year while just a couple of other trucks decided not to use their social media accounts anymore.  Most of these trucks have been moved out of the active food truck list, including:

• Capital Empanadas
• Love Bites
• Juive Revolution
• Dippin Dots
• Salt And Pepper Grill
• Growler’s Slamwich
• Sweetflow Mobile
• Sweet Fleet
• Solar Crepes
• KrazyKlaws

Last Friday, DCRA released the 3rd draft of vending regulations. Tim Carman, from the Washington Post, reported a nice summary of the changes. DCRA provided a red-lined version between version 2 and version 3 of the proposed regs (pdf)! The public will have 30 days to comment on the regulations, which can be directed to Helder Gil, Legislative Affairs Specialist, Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, 1100 Fourth Street, SW, Room 5164, Washington, D.C. 20024, or via e-mail at DCVendingRegs@dc.gov.

I’ll take some time to think over the changes and provide some commentary in a few days. 🙂

Starting today (Saturday 10/6 @ 11am), TaKorean is opening a fixed location inside Union Market (1309 5th St NE)!  I’ll update with photos as I receive them. 🙂  UPDATE: The press release is attached to the bottom of this post.

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