Talk:Food truck

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 September 2018 and 16 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Alanderson3.

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Link to greasetruck.org
I am removing the link to greasetruck.org. The site is mainly full of ads. Besides, there are literally scores of millions of things in the universe now that have "inspired" a web page devoted to them. Doing so is really no longer a notable accomplishment. Besides, the inclusion of the link and its description really added no content to the article. -Seidenstud 18:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

This has been merged enough already. Food trucks are different than catering, by a long shot. I was actually saddened that taco trucks was clumped into the same article.

Changed one of the statements on Grease Trucks
I have changed the paragraph on grease trucks slightly... the statement that "The concept of Grease Trucks began when a Rutgers student decided that he would mix multiple types of common foods (steak, cheese, chicken fingers, french fries, mozzarella sticks, jalapeno poppers, etc) and combine them into a single sandwich" is misleading... the Grease Trucks predate Fat Sandwiches by quite a bit, but Fat Sandwiches are what made them famous. They were selling greasy deep-fried food for a long time before the first Fat Cat. Cory 18:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Notable food trucks?
Okay, so there are only one or two now, but what are the criteria for putting a notable food truck on here? Leo's Taco Truck, for example, has been put on here because it is mentioned in a college's student guides. I know of local trucks in Chicago and Philly that have equal reknown. For a truck to be on here it should have some national claim to fame. There just too many non-notable local favorites to list them here. - AKeen 23:27, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

This article is awful. If I had the authority I would re-write it totally. It written almost entirely from an American viewpoint and the "notable food trucks" section is the biggest proof of this. Who are these food trucks notable too. I have never ever heard of them! Cls14 19:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The standard for including information within an article is a lower threshold than the standard of notability for an independent article. If information about individual taco trucks or other mobile restaurants contributes to the article, and is verifiable with cited sources, then that information can be included in the article. - Michael J Swassing (talk) 02:45, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:FOOD Tagging
This article talk page was automatically added with WikiProject Food and drink banner as it falls under Category:Restaurants or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. You can find the related request for tagging here -- TinucherianBot (talk) 09:29, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Basic costs and requirements of starting one
No doubt, some people who visit this article are interested in starting one, and it would be useful if there were a note of the legal requirements (licenses, inspections, etc.) that are necessary for doing so. It is worth noting because there is likely to be confusion on the startup overhead and liability of a mobile vendor like a food truck or hot-dog cart; most people would probably wonder if it is easy/cheap to start one of these as compared to a restaurant (like selling at a farmer's- or flea-market). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Synetech (talk • contribs) 04:53, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Such information would probably violate WP:NOTHOWTO. --Ronz (talk) 00:40, 3 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Business and economic aspects of food trucks would be worthy additions. Can't see how including that type of info would constitute a how-to unless written as one. --Tsavage (talk) 21:41, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

NPOV
The article is repeatedly targeted to promote individual providers over others. This article is about food trucks in general. Any mention of individual trucks and providers should be important to the understanding of food trucks in general and should not cherry-pick from sources.

Multiple editors are adding content with little or no effort to incorporate it with related content. This creates duplication and undue weight. --Ronz (talk) 02:14, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Reliability of sources
Given the topic, I'm not sure what level of reliability we should require, but I found these two to be questionable: Comments? --Ronz (talk) 17:04, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Samuelsson, Marcus,, Mobile Food News.com, June 28, 2011. Retrieved: September 6, 2011.
 * Lempert, Phil,, Supermarket News.com, October 25, 2010. Retrieved: September 6, 2011.


 * I removed a "reliable source?" tag beside Marcus Samuelsson, read his article, do a quick web search, he is a notable chef and food author. Supermarket News is an American weekly trade publication for food retailers. I don't see any problem with either as sources for this topic. If there is a specific issue with reliability with either, please elaborate. --Tsavage (talk) 21:26, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Merge with Mobile catering

 * Merge. Yes, by all means, merge them. A true food truck sells vegetables, meats, etc. See http://framework.latimes.com/2011/09/21/1921-food-truck/ for a photo of one. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 01:27, 26 September 2011 (UTC)


 * No. Are you kidding? Who calls them "mobile catering" anyway?  Something less formal than "mobile catering," which sounds like food you would order on your phone, and "roach coach" is probably in order here, and food truck seems to be a reasonable compromise.  After all, this is a cultural work in progress, not one that ended hundreds of years ago. 27.123.185.166 (talk) 02:47, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Sincerely, David Turner
 * For my friend David Turner—the user could still type "food truck" in the search box and would be led to "Mobile catering." You could use the phrase "food truck" in the first paragraph of the article to provide context. There really is no sense in having two articles on the same phenomenon. Thanks for listening. Your friend, GeorgeLouis (talk) 07:09, 22 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose - Mobile catering encompasses many kinds of catering. Merging a specific article on food trucks is unhelpful and unnecessarily ambiguous. This article on food trucks is not about the type of food truck that sells all sorts of produce, but on the type of food truck that caters specific cuisine/food. It can stand on its own. - M0rphzone (talk) 04:55, 27 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose - A web search and scan of media headlines and usage immediately indicates that "food truck" commonly refers to food vending vehicles that sell prepared products for immediate consumption, with a particular current focus on trucks with upscale offerings, like gourmet cuisine and specialty menus. It should not be merged with mobile catering or anything else, because it is its own thing. --Tsavage (talk) 21:31, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

German section
What's wrong with the description about germany? "fuck truck"? really?

Food truck
(Copied Tsavage's talk page): I changed your recent expansion of Food truck, finding some the material overly promotional and the link to one of the companies mentioned as being WP:REFSPAM. The other company didn't appear to be mentioned in the reference at all. Am I overlooking something? --Ronz (talk) 14:30, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the note. I disagree with your assessment.
 * Roadstoves is a legitimate entry, notable on its own, a key outfitter in Los Angeles that "helped launch Kogi into the stratosphere", Kogi being the first gourmet food truck to receive wide attention. I have no connection with Roadstoves, and certainly am not promoting them, so WP:REFSPAM doesn't apply here, as that guideline refers to intentional use of direct links. The link was a placeholder for a fully formatted citation - basic, non-controversial information about Roadstoves can be sourced from its site.
 * Gourmet Streets was already there. I briefly looked at their web site, and am not sure how noteworthy they are. I did remove existing promotional language, if you check the diff. The Economist link was already there as well, and presumably for Gourmet Streets, however, I just checked it and does not mention them, but does mention Roadstoves.
 * If you are still concerned that I am refspamming, please let me know.
 * I'm planning to continue editing this article for a bit, as time permits, so I will add a more detailed mention of Roadstoves, and look into the noteworthiness of Gourmet Streets. --Tsavage (talk) 18:25, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the link to Roadstove's website qualified as REFSPAM.
 * As for mention of Roadstoves, yes it's getting very brief mentions in the press. Hard to know what to do with it without better sources offering more context. At a glance (without independent, in-depth sources to help), it looks like a company working the LA area. --Ronz (talk) 01:00, 1 July 2015 (UTC)


 * You've deleted content, and I'm still unclear on your grounds for doing so:
 * Calling something WP:REFSPAM is an accusation against an editor of spamming, it is not simply about considering whether a particular citation is "spam," the guideline speaks to intent and a pattern of link inclusion. Unless you're accusing me of spamming, this guideline is irrelevant here (see also WP:SELFSOURCE):
 * "Citation spamming is the illegitimate or improper use of citations, footnotes or references. Citation spamming is a form of search engine optimization or promotion that typically involves the repeated insertion of a particular citation or reference in multiple articles by a single contributor. ... Citation spamming is a subtle form of spam and should not be confused with legitimate good-faith additions intended to verify article content and help build the encyclopedia."
 * "yes it's getting very brief mentions in the press. Hard to know what to do with it without better sources offering more context" - There is more than "brief mentions," and enough reliable source material about Roadstoves, with extensive context, to meet WP:NOTABILITY, including, , ,.
 * This is overall a pretty minor issue, however, I find hastily deleting content without pressing reason (e.g. defamation, copyright, BLP, vandalism), especially right after an editor has entered it, is against Wikipedia's basic guidance and spirit. --Tsavage (talk) 02:54, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Please just don't add such links. This is why I brought it up with you personally, so as not to make a big issue of it. --Ronz (talk) 14:24, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Please don't remove just-added non-contentious content without discussion and/or an inline tag. And please don't presume to tell me what to add; personal opinion does not trump WP:VERIFIABLE, and citing WP:REFSPAM is a charge of deliberate spamming. (Also, I see you've been on my Talk page before; please keep editing concerns (for me, at least) with the article they relate to.) Thanks you. --Tsavage (talk) 15:43, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry you feel that way. Seems we're drifting far from WP:FOC.
 * Steering back, I believe there is very strong, very wide consensus that such links are inappropriate. --Ronz (talk) 15:52, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It's only about content. Please reply to my question about the appropriateness here of WP:REFSPAM, and to the sources provided to establish noteworthiness/notability for Roadstoves. Also, if there is very strong, very wide consensus that "such links" are inappropriate - using a company's web site as a source for non-controversial basic information about that company - perhaps you could provide a link to where that has been established. Prove your point or let it drop. --Tsavage (talk) 18:25, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I'm seeing absolutely nothing justifying the link as a source at all.
 * I refer to the link as REFSPAM: a link formatted as a reference that verifies little if anything at all (and nothing that has been identified despite the length of this discussion), that is at best a self-published source about itself, all the while being wildly promotional as such websites will be. That's the content issue specific to the link. That's why the link was removed. --Ronz (talk) 19:01, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The cited page clearly indicates Roadstoves services, like "Get a truck: Roadstoves has several options to help you get your food truck started," "Promotions & Advertising," "Professional business consulting specific to the food truck industry," which coincides with the text it illustrates: "turnkey food truck packages that can include concept development, training, and business support, in addition to outfitted trucks." You coulad have removed the citation if you found it so wrong, and left a citation needed tag, instead of deleting the content as well. Anyhow, I don't sense this is going anywhere, so I will stop here. --Tsavage (talk) 22:39, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Are gourmet food trucks an American trend?
Did the current big trend of gourmet food trucks begin in the US - 2008, LA/New York, Kogi, etc - and spread internationally, or did it have other points of origin more or less simultaneously - in other words, is it an American trend? It seems that way, but I haven't found any sources that directly address this, so far, all the origin accounts I've read are about the US, but don't address the spread internationally, and articles about GFCs elsewhere if anything only mention the influence of the American food truck. For example, the Economist leads a "Trucking delicious" article, categorized under "United States," with "The biggest shift in America's culinary landscape in 2011 will result from neither novel cooking techniques nor the discovery of a new species ... some of the best food Americans eat may come from a food truck," but doesn't mention anything beyond the US. Is that sort of account enough to establish it as an American trend? If anyone has a source that discusses this more explicitly.... --Tsavage (talk) 23:14, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Someday I expect someone will write a history that we can use. Until then we just have to be careful of SYN/OR problems.
 * Quickly searching, there may be some good histories already: --Ronz (talk) 01:49, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Not sure about the first, but worth looking at closely: --Ronz (talk) 02:41, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
 * https://www.oxy.edu/sites/default/files/assets/UEP/Comps/2013/Rishi%20Kiran_A%20Food%20Revolution--Comps%20Final%20Draft.pdf
 * http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-america-became-a-food-truck-nation-99979799/?no-ist
 * Sifting through others with questionable reliability:
 * http://mobile-cuisine.com/business/history-of-american-food-trucks/ has an interesting timeline that could be researched, but I'm not sure how reliable it is.
 * http://www.culinaryschools.com/history-of-food-trucks Again, not sure about reliability.
 * http://www.huffingtonpost.com/quora/where-did-the-modern-us-f_b_1829587.html
 * I've yet to find anything looking beyond the US. --Ronz (talk) 19:39, 2 July 2015 (UTC)


 * It's a global thing after all. There's food trucks and mobile kitchens in Germany since decades and it accelerated in the 80s, went lower in the 90s to come back in the 2000s. I wouldn't say it spreaded from the US, as there were fluctuating trends all around. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 19:53, 9 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Do you have any sources, in any language, that might discuss the evolution of food trucks elsewhere than in the US, and particularly what we're calling the gourmet food truck? --Tsavage (talk) 20:48, 9 October 2015 (UTC)


 * When my calm minute is around the corner, I'll probably have a look into that. :) Next week. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 23:32, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

food truck in France
American-style trucks selling restaurant-quality food first appeared in Paris in 2012... Paris is not the whole France since there is trucks selling restaurant quality food in the whole France long before 2012, especially in Marseille or Northern France. And some may say that burger isn't really a restaurant quality food, especially in french's standards. Matieu Sokolovic (talk) 16:47, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

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Paragraph removed from the lead
Removed this paragraph from the lead. It really doesn't say any thing useful (I find it kinda silly and obvious), it's almost entirely unsourced, it's US-centric, and the lists seem random and arbitrary. Similar info can be better summarized from the article. The para is here, because it's a fairly big deletion, so editors can check it out and see if they disagree. --Tsavage (talk) 01:34, 21 January 2016 (UTC) "Food trucks service events (carnivals, construction sites, sporting events etc.) and places of regular work or study – college campuses, office complexes, industrial parks, auto repair shops, movie sets, farmers' markets, military bases, etc. – where regular meals or snacks are in high demand by potential customers. Food truck dining has caught on in several U.S. and Canadian cities including Toronto, Montreal, Hamilton, Vancouver, Washington, D.C., New York, Austin, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Calgary, Portland and Tampa."

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