Originally Posted by
Hans64
I am from the Detroit area and live in Portland now. Portland has between 200-400 food trucks [[number varies seasonally) in various pods around the city. For $3-$6 you can sample foods including Mexican, Peruvian, Cuban, Indian, German, Belgian, Thai, Venezulian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, on and on it goes. The food quality is generally very high [[as it is throughout Portland in general). Some of the trucks are tied to restaurants, other trucks branch out into full service restaurants themselves based on their success. All of these places have CROWDS of people at all hours: some pods cater to the downtown lunch crowd, some to late night crowds, etc. No restaurants have closed because they could not compete--going to a cart and going to a restaurant are apples and oranges. Sorry folks--if you think entrepreneurship, increased foot traffic and positive street life, and taxes paid to the city vis a vis food carts are something to ban or avoid then Detroit really is not going to go anywhere from what it is today.