Food Trucks Spice Up the Nation's Capital

About 20 food trucks are currently operating in the Washington, D.C. area, with another five coming soon, according to the Food Truck Fiesta blog, which also provides a daily, real-time automated "DC Food Truck Tracker" map and updated Twitter feeds with information about where the trucks are located on a given day.  The trucks typically move around each day, and about three locate daily at Farragut Square (conveniently located just down the block from AEI), often with blankets for a full picnic experience (see top picture), and often with ridiculously long lines at the Lobster Truck (see bottom picture), which currently ranks #1 among DC food trucks for having the most Twitter followers.  

Some of the food trucks offer limited State-fair type junk food menus like Fry Captain (fries and milk shakes only, menu here), and others have a more sophisticated international street food menu like Sauca, which sells Mumbai butter chicken, Vietnamese pork banh mi, beef Shawarma, Italian salsiccia con Puttanesca, and Mexicali fish tacos (they come to Farragut Square every Tuesday).

With long, Soviet-style queues like those at the Lobster Truck, it's no surprise that according to the Wall Street Journal:

"A small but growing number of chains—such as Cousins Submarines Inc., Tasti D-Lite LLC and Toppers Pizza Inc.—are following in the tire tracks of those local food-truck businesses popping up on city streets around the U.S. Many brick-and-mortar eateries have added mobile units in recent years, and more are expected to do the same, including national brands. 

Sites like Twitter, Facebook and FourSquare are making it easy for consumers to track mobile vendors' whereabouts, says Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research for the National Restaurant Association in Washington, D.C."