Eastern Market Community Advisory Committee Update – Part I; Food Trucks – Info Hub – Weekday Farmer’s Market
by Larry Janezich
Eastern Market Community Advisory Committee (EMCAC) met on Wednesday, June 29, in Eastern Market’s North Hall. The following items were among the issues discussed at the meeting.
Food Truck Trouble?
The popular food trucks which appear on weekends both at Eastern Market and at curbsides on 7th Street near the market and around the Metro Plaza are troubling nearby food outlets and vendors at the Market. The complaints concern the competition, parking spaces taken up by the trucks, and queuing which interferes with pedestrian traffic. One business operator who spoke during the public comment part of Wednesday night’s meeting said that DC currently has 100 food trucks, but New York and Los Angeles have thousands. EMCAC Chair Donna Sheeder said that EMCAC will consider the issue. Being discessed are regulations about where and how long the trucks can operate around the market. Vendors at the market and others are calling for stricter city regulation of the trucks.
Info Hub
EMCAC member Chuck Burger reported that final conceptual sketches on the Info Hub planned for the Eastern Market Metro Plaza should be finished in the next week. The schematic will show the precise location of the structure and what would be around it as well as “what is going on inside.” Construction could begin this fall.
Burger announced that CHAMPS has set up a non-profit organization – “Celebrate Capitol Hill” – to spearhead a fundraising effort to provide operating expenses for the project. To kick off this effort, a fund raising party – possibly at the end of July – will be announced soon. The goal will be to raise $50,000 in pledges – enough to cover operating costs for the first three years.
Weekday Farmer’s Market Back on the Table
The idea of a weekday farmer’s market one day a week at Eastern Market is once again being discussed by EMCAC. The new impetus is being driven, in part, by weekday farmer’s markets in NOMA and Penn Quarter. Watch for a notice on the Eastern Market website soliciting community input. :http://www.easternmarket-dc.org/
CAPITOL HILL CORNER 
What constitutes Eastern Market. The food trucks I have seen in the area park south of Penn Ave.
This is about competition, pure and simple. Folks don’t want any competition.
Exactly – let people decide whether they want to pay three bucks for a fresh cupcake outside the market or a buck for a stale one inside
I am a fan of the food trucks and will often patronize them because they offer food options that otherwise aren’t available. If the food trucks aren’t there it doesn’t mean I’ll default to purchasing from the Market vendors.
The Market itself provides few prepared food options compared to other markets I’ve been to. There are long lines indoors, as is the line to the outdoor crepe stand, and the other outdoor selections are scant and not that appealing. I live three blocks away and am at the market every weekend. I, for one, would appreciate a little more variety and competition in this area, given the crowds.
You may not recall that 15-20 years ago there was a strong likelihood that Eastern Market would become a fast food hall (like Union Station) and that, accordingly, prepared foods were restricted inside the market to preserve it as a historic fresh food market. It was not then anticipated that people would forget, or never learn how, to cook.
I sure as heck wasn’t suggesting anything that would lead to a fast food hall. I like the inside market just the way it is. What I’d like to see is a couple more stands like that crepe stand over by the aquatic center (that’s what I mean by “prepared foods”). That’s usually the only food over in that direction, while the flea market has a few things too, but not much (and if you’re a vegetarian, like I am, there’s even less). I buy almost all my produce at the market, for home cooking. Sometime it’s nice to interrupt your produce shopping and flea market browsing with a bite for lunch. I’ll admit I’m spoiled by the market in Ithaca, NY, which offers Indian food, Tibetan food, Thai, Cambodian, breakfast burritos, crepes, waffles, and much much more. (It’s a lot stricter — a lot more “local” — than Eastern Market.) If you’re able to eat at the market or in the immediate vicinity, you tend to do a lot more grocery and flower and craft shopping. Everyone benefits except for the full-fledged restaurants, and that’s a different thing entirely.
A weekday farmers’ market is at least 10 years over due. There probably should be two, not just one.
It would be helfpul to EMCAC and the market management to know if people prefer certain days for the weekday farmers’ market. I for one am in favor of a Wednesday market…
And just a couple of minor corrections to Larry’s otherwise accurately reported piece:
a) EMCAC is not proposing the food truck regulations, the Department of Real Estate Services is proposing a plan that would identify specific spaces near the natatorium for the food trucks to park. It wouldn’t prohibit food trucks near the market, rather it would seek to better control the parking impacts and the impact on pedestrian flow along the sidewalks. EMCAC has been asked to provide their opinion on the proposed plan. Also, the city is already considering foodtruck legislation on their own; vendors at Eastern Market are not the driving force behind this legislation. For the record, my favorite food trucks are Bandito BBQ and Tasty Kabob–delish.
Lastly, the impetus for the weekday market is really more about executing an idea that has been in limbo for some time, not necessarily a conscious effort to keep up with the joneses in NoMa and Penn Quarter. Though certainly the market must evolve and improve if it wants to be a high quality operation.
The food trucks are great, but I think it’s fair for there to be some (very light) regulations. Right now the guy with the hot dog cart is subject to a few sensible regs, while the trucks are an unanticipated new trend that isn’t addressed in the DC law, and they do anything they want. I’m no expert, but there was an hour-long piece on NPR a while back. Corralling them in a specific, predictable spot would benefit consumers of the trucks, so that feels like the right place to start in Eastern Market. If it was guys selling incense and crappy tees instead of cupcake trucks, people would be annoyed if they were anywhere, anytime. Simple rules seem in order.
Monica, the regulations governing the food trucks are miles long. As a food truck owner, we spent months complying iwth the myriad regulations. Currently the food truck association is actively working to implement more sensible regulations for the industry. There are simple things we would like to see, such as allowing our businesses to be licensed as a corporation rather than an individual. Tax parity that brings the sales tax question to rest (and I point out we pay the same percent tax in a different form to the city so the budgetary impact is nil, both out of our pockets and into the city’s coffers and we are currently at tax parity with restaurants).
Food trucks also are highly regulated on where we can be, and we have to move if we don’t have a line etc.
Finally, many food truck owners and operators are long time hill residents. Curbside, Lobster Pound, PORC and others live on the hill, send our kids to hill schools, and in my own case… drop a lot of coin at Eastern Market and hill restaurants. Most trucks also have kitchens. For instance we rent a large formily unutilized kitchen space from a restaurant in an economically challenged area of the city. The owner has been very thankful for our partnership as it allows him to keep operating and keep a robust staff that likely would have been downsized if we weren’t paying rent.
Unfortunately, our kitchen isn’t on Cap Hill as our attempts to locate a suitable kitchen via cap hill biz organizations and word of mouth were not fruitful.
Finally, I must say, my co-owners and I were extremely determined to be 100% district owned and operated which added substantial costs versus housing our truck and kitchen in VA or MD and we have tried hard to locally source the bulk of our food. Despite this goodwill, the rumormongering and misinformation from the restaurant lobby persists.
Now, that being said, the food truck community needs to also be proactive in avoiding problems. There are a few trucks that have made mistakes, sometimes intentionally, that make us all look bad.
In my case, the food trucks drew me back to the Market, where I also purchased from the farmers. I’ve missed the trucks for the past couple of weeks, so my incentive to get down there and hassle with the crowd will now be limited again.
Honestly if I was looking for a quick bite my choices would be limited if it wasn’t for food trucks. Most places around the Metro (down 8th and up 7th) are sit down and frankly I don’t always want to set down at a restaurant. More often if I am hunger on Sat/Sun and there aren’t any truck I just go home – the sit down places don’t get my business. There are only so many chairs/tables available and I suspect there are a fair number of people who feel that sit-down places are more trouble than they feel like dealing with when they are there – particularly at high volume times like mid day/lunch.
Also, while I am not there every Sat/Sun (my sample observation is somewhat limited), I don’t notice that many trucks. Sometimes they are there sometimes they aren’t, and when I do see them I see one or two not 10 or 20 (which would be a bit annoying) so I am not sure how “invasive” they actually are. More often when I am down there I actually wish there was actually at least one so I could grab something quick and go.