"To all future vendors," reads a tweet from Executive Auto Salon, a Philadelphia body shop specializing in car and truck customizations. "Make sure you buy the right size truck. Just cut off 3 feet to make local code for someone."  A link to a photo of a boxy truck, neatly sliced like a loaf of bread, follows.

A labyrinth of such codes – from Licenses & Inspections, the Health Department, and the Parking Authority, to name a few – are part of what Philadelphia Mobile Food Association founder Andrew Gerson terms "barriers to entry and operation" for new and existing food truck and cart vendors in the city.  After submitting his master's thesis, Food Trucks Can be Utilized to Promote Sustainable Agriculture in Urban Environments, at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Turin, Italy, Gerson returned to Philadelphia to launch Strada Pasta, his own moveable feast.

Instead he found himself moving Strada to hiatus, to better focus his energies on developing PhillyMFA. "I saw mobile food associations in other cities," he says. "Philly is lacking the infrastructure for a new generation of trucks to operate the way we'd like. We felt the need to create legislative change, as well as share resources, so trucks could grow in the city… it's creating food access as well."

Gerson's notion has captured the attention and energy of a host of local professionals, all of whom are working in a volunteer capacity to get the just-incorporated organization up and running. Nearly 60 people showed up for their first meeting in December 2011, hosted by the student-run Penn Legal Clinic, who are providing free legal counsel. The group meets again on March 20.

"One of our goals is to help people come together in social learning," says tech consultant Patrick O'Rourke, who built the PhillyMFA website and beta Mobile Vendor Map, as well as serving on the steering committee and managing social media and grant applications.  He estimates there are around 100 food truck operators in various stages of operation, and close to 500 entrepreneurs working or pursuing formal entities in the broader mobile food business (including food carts and the like).


"A knowledge base that is centralized and made available is the most crucial thing we do; that and providing original events, things that make sense to the vendors."

Realizing destination events and establishing new gatherings of vendors– inspired by pop-up food courts in sunnier climates like Los Angeles – are key to diversifying and increasing revenue for Philadelphia food truckers, whose fates can be tied to the caprices of weather. "We'd like to create more business opportunities with alternative eating spaces," says Gerson. "Using public or private property lots, and making it a destination location – we're determining how to make it work, with L&I."   

Chair of the Membership Committee Amy Rivera, who works in fundraising development with a side business in event design, sees her role as a mediator for food trucks. "I help them connect with an organization that needs trucks or carts at their event," she says. "Initiating these relationships, as well as offering events on our own, will be a benefit to our members."

"Rules and regulations have not caught up with modern times," says veteran restaurant consultant and former restaurateur Harris Eckstut. "Whatever issues face truckers are more than a single business owner can handle. I'm here to help facilitate and guide them on dealing with governing agencies—how to get yourself to the table to deal with these multiple issues: health rules, late night service, events.  Financing these trucks is a sticky wicket – banks are not experienced in financing mobile food businesses.  You need operating capital; it's still a business, not just flipping burgers."

With the organization incorporated and the wheels of change beginning to turn, it's now up to Steering Committee members like Franklin Shen of the Sugar Philly truck (named one of the nation's  top 20 food trucks by Smithsonian last week) and Dan Pennachietti of Lil' Dan's Gourmet to help rally fellow truckers to fill the membership rolls and strengthen the voice of the PMFA.

"It will be far easier for the city when we articulate our needs as one versus 200 voices," wrote O'Rourke in an email message. "We are finding all sorts of benefits we had not considered, like discounted group insurance and preferred vendor list of fair dealers like garages and graphic artists.  What we do for people is going to evolve."

FELICIA D'AMBROSIO is a Philadelphia-based food writer. Her work also appears in City Paper, GRID, Metro, and Keystone Edge. Send feedback here.

PHOTOS:

Andrew Gerson and Patrick O'Rourke

Andrew Gerson owner of the Strada Pasta Truck in his prep kitchen - Mt. Airy

Patrick O'Rourke - Tech Consultant for PhillyPMA

O'Rourke at work

Andrew prepping pasta in a space that he shares with other vendors

Knead time

Dan Pennachietti and the Lil' Dan's food truck crew

Pennachietti at work in the truck

Fresh bread aboard Lil' Dan's truck

Special grilled steak cooked perfectly at Lil' Dan's

All photographs by MICHAEL PERSICO