A cart of problems: workers move one of the Toronto a la Cart stations from Nathan Phillips Square (Image: Anthony Easton)
Meet Nancy Senawong as she schleps her $30,000 cart through Mel Lastman Square, where she will serve city-approved, city-branded, multiculti street fare to passersby for the second summer in a row. It’s now been two years since the Toronto a la Cart scheme was launched, and Senawong is the ailing food program’s new poster girl. Though she remains in debt for the pricey cart, she is the “one success story” from 2009, according to John Filion, the health board chair who first championed the street food scheme. She and at least five of eight other indebted vendors attached to the program will spend the spring scraping together what they’ll need (anywhere from $7,500 to $14,500) to keep their stalls in line with stiff municipal regulations.
“The one thing the city messed up on was the carts,” Filion tells the Star, apparently without irony. He was referring to faulty parts and forgotten weather enclosures. Verity Crown, the manufacturer of the units, added that if it had not been forced to conform to the city’s 75-page specifications list, carts would have been lighter and half the price. “Our hands were tied,” says president Bill Verity.
To that blunder, we’d like to add strict rules governing marketing, photo use and the approval of menu changes, which together leave little room for the sort of entrepreneurial creativity that can yield decent margins.
So why hasn’t Toronto a la Cart become the bountiful program its plan foretold? Probably hasn’t been regulated enough.
• Food carts still stymied by red tape [Toronto Star]
Yeah, micromanaging. As long as they’re following health regulations regarding hygiene, why mess with the menu items and every other aspect, like having to man the cart for 70% of the time, strict location and not even getting to design their own cart. How can you have one kind of cart for all those different cuisines?
March 18, 2010 at 3:00 am | by SalanthAs usual, Toronto ruins what could have been a great idea. Pathetic.
March 18, 2010 at 9:50 am | by MattagascarThere are great year round carts in Philladelphia..like fully equiped U-hall’s. If you want to know how to successfully run street vending and have a fabulous variety of great food…invite a dozen carts over from Bangkok to show you how to do it…Make it a Dundas Square event.
March 23, 2010 at 9:36 am | by TIM DEVLIN@ Tim Devlin
THAT … is a great idea!!!
March 23, 2010 at 10:40 am | by N Collard