August 2012
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An interview with Wafels & Dinges founder Thomas...
Thomas DeGeest is the Brussels, Belgium native and former IBM management consultant turned pastry jockey who founded Wafels & Dinges in 2007. At the time of its launch, the gourmet food truck movement in New York City was in a stage of infancy. The crumbs from these tasty Belgium-inspired treats helped to pave a path for an entire movement that would go on to receive international attention....
July 2012
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Public Forum — Mobile Food Vending in NYC
If you’re interested in getting a look at the underbelly of the mobile vending circuit, a public hearing is being held this month in which you should attend. The New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is holding a forum on July 19th from 10am-12pm at 125 Worth Street, New York, NY 10013. The purpose of the meeting is to overhaul and amend sections of the Chapter 6. rules for Mobile...
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UpendED interview series: Caroline Ballhorn of Tin...
“People responding to Tin Can Studio has never been an issue. People love trailers. People are so drawn to them. Even if they don’t understand what you’re doing in it, they’re happy to be there. That’s been a real amazing part of the project.”
In a fortuitous state of affairs, I discovered the existence of Tin Can Studio by way of a random post in my Twitter feed. Following the link...
June 2012
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The Restaurant Industry Is Not Psyched About... →
The trickle down effects may affect mobile businesses that operate strictly by-the-book (and on the books).
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Circus performers are mobile vendors, too →
…and in the words of Stephen Colbert, so can you!
Here is a guide that I penned for Inc. on establishing a small, traveling circus. You may find that there are distinct similarities to the business aspect of operating a pop-up shop or taking a retail vehicle on a cross-country tour.
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Food Truck Start-up Costs - A Realistic Breakdown
At the Meetup on Monday, mobile vendors had the pleasure of speaking to Jerome Chang, owner of Cathcart & Reddy and the former DessertTruck. Chang gave us an exclusive interview last month, detailing the costs, trials, and tribulations of opening a food truck in New York City. Whether you’re purchasing a brand new food truck, hiring a t-shirt printing company to do custom apparel for...
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Fly Away Zine Mobile: zine mobile summer... →
Are you interested in getting your mobile venture on? How about participating in the road trip of a lifetime? The Fly Away Zine Mobile is looking for co-conspirators for the Cross Pollination tour:
zinemobile:
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD AND JOIN US!
Dear friends, comrades, strangers, family, collaborators, colleagues, lovers, and otherwise brilliant human beings (please pass along as you’re...
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UpendED's now on Google+
Yesterday, I had the fortune of being invited to the Google HQ in NYC to discuss the integration of UpendED into Google+.
Being inside The Google was pretty neat, and finding out that members of their staff love mobile ventures as much as we do was even more interesting.
Suffice it to say that UpendED now has a Google+ page, although it definitely needs (and will receive) a bit of tweaking....
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UpendED interview series: Ben Dubin-Thaler of...
“The U.S. is in a bad way when it comes to science education. We’re ranked something like 17th in the world. In schools with over 50% minority enrollment, fewer than half of those schools have working science labs. The whole purpose that I had when I built the BioBus was to bring a hands-on science lab to students in low-income communities in order to inspire the next generation of...
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Could this have been the first mobile school?
If you’re familiar with mobile education initiatives, you may have heard of The Door Step School, a literacy vehicle for marginalized children in rural areas of Pune and Mumbai, India.
But the U.S. had a similar program as far back as 1906. Out of the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Tuskegee, Alabama, came the Tuskegee Institute Movable School. George Washington Carver...
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Here's why it's a GREAT time to join the Meetup...
meetup:
It’s Meetup’s tenth birthday, but you deserve the credit for getting us all here.
That’s why we want you to give one of you a trip to any Meetup in the world! Just RSVP and attend a local Meetup happening between now and July 15th, and you are automatically entered to win. We’ll cover the cost of the winner’s hotel and airfare up to $5,000. You can enter up to five times by going...
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Wal-Mart, Proctor & Gamble have popped up →
Taking inspiration from the food truck craze, major brands from Mashable to eBay have have begun launching trucks and pop-ups as promotional tools.
Follow @PGMobile to see how Proctor & Gamble is leveraging mobile vending in New York City.
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David Weber (NYC Food Truck Association president,... →
David Weber is not only a co-founder of Rickshaw Dumpling Truck, he’s also the president of the NYC Food Truck Association and the author of “The Food Truck Handbook”.
Watch him give the keynote address at the AMB HQ with a Q&A to follow. The event is free.
Register to attend HERE.
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Tin Can Studio.org
Food enthusiasts Ken Tsui and Ellen Lee are gearing up for another summer of Eat Together meals. The super-cool series of pop-up suppers hosted in the Tin Can Studio, an 18ft 1972 Streamline trailer lovingly transformed into a roving community art studio and sometimes restaurant.
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Food Trucks Bring Meals To Hungry Kids →
With food trucks being “cool” these days, the city of New Haven, CT is using food trucks to get kids to come out for meals this summer. The end of the school year means the end of free and reduced-price lunches that fill the gap between kids’…
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Watch
In France, there is still a widespread belief that the daily diet in the United States consists of grossly large servings of fast food. But in Paris, American food is suddenly being seen as more than just restauration rapide. Among young Parisians, there is currently no greater praise for cuisine than “très Brooklyn,” a term that signifies a particularly cool combination of informality,...
May 2012
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UpendED interview series: Lauren Loomis of Lulu's...
“The start up capital that you need for a food truck is a lot lower than a brick and mortar. To put a whole lot of money into a building that we would just be renting didn’t make a whole lot of sense for us.”
Lauren Loomis, 26, is the proprietor of a unique brand of food truck — the kind with a garden on top! Lulu’s Local Eatery launched a month ago in St. Louis and...
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Food truck operators to form nonprofit association →
Some food-truck operators in New Orleans, who have long bemoaned hurdles for navigating the city’s protocol for getting up to code, say they plan to form a nonprofit association that will create a single point of contact as they work to persuade officials to ease some of the rules of the game, like increasing the number of permits issued annually, extending the time a truck can stay in one...
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a...”
– Robert Heinlein (via:Caterina:zachklein) (via beautifulordinaire) (via upended, zachklein)
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Mobile Laboratory Coalition
While performing an interview today with BioBus founder Dr. Ben Dubin-Thaler, I discovered the existence of the Mobile Laboratory Coalition, a network of mobile science labs in which BioBus is a founding member. I’ll have more on them at some point, and the full interview with Dr. Dubin-Thaler about BioBus on Tuesday, June 19th.
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UpendED interview series: Debbie Rasmussen of Fly...
“It’s intended to be the first piece of a bigger caravan where there will be many mobile vehicles traveling around the country doing things that are related to free education, free skill shares, and free shows.”
Debbie Rasmussen started out as the associate publisher of Bitch magazine in 2003, and enjoyed a tenure as publisher from 2005-2008. After ending her stint at Bitch, she...
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The Leonard Lopate Show — Food on the Move: The... →
Food trucks are expanding eating options all over New York. David Weber, founder and president of the New York City Food Truck Association (NYCFTA), Deborah Smith, owner of the Green Pirate Juice truck, and Jim Drew, owner of Phil’s Steaks truck, discuss the growing mobile food movement. Weber’s book The Food Truck Handbook: Start, Grow and Succeed in the Mobile Food Business looks at the...
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UpendED interview series: Jerome Chang of...
“There’s nothing magical about a truck that’s going to make running it easier. It is not easier. The overhead is not necessarily lower.”
In front of Cathcart & Reddy, all that remains of its mobile predecessor is an emblem of its likeness that juts out beneath the awning. Conspicuously dubbed, DessertTruck was a grandaddy in New York City’s gourmet food truck movement. Its...
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New Yorks Hottest Food Trucks Deliver for Elderly →
We’re on wheels and they’re on wheels. Now we are working together to help elderly homebound New Yorkers. Joining forces never tasted so good! For the first two weeks in May, New Yorkers will be able to do good by satisfying their appetite for street food through a new partnership between Citymeals-on-Wheels and the New York City Food Truck Association.
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Gourmet Food Trucks Fight Inspectors’ Perceptions →
Porc Mobile was born when Josh Saltzman pooled money to buy a white mail truck and convert it into a roving kitchen, dishing out barbecue and baguettes topped with goat cheese on Washington’s city streets.
While customers flock, so has the health department: six times since beginning operations last year, Saltzman said. Inspectors often arrive unannounced during the lunch rush, targeting food...
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UpendED interview series: Sister Moon
“I knew in the city food trucks were how a lot of people were making money and I was like, I can do the same thing, but with jewelry and fabrics and oils and other things.”
Some experiences in mobile entrepreneurship are more eclectic than others. Such is the case with Nicki D’Agnostino, aka Sister Moon, a 29-year-old hairstylist from Grafton Lakes, a rural town outside of Albany, NY....
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Prostitution on wheels →
Long Island ‘hooker’ accused of selling sex out of hot-dog truck — again
This isn’t what most of us had in mind when we went the mobile route…
When an investor suggests ways to become more...
runningastartup:
Lam Thuy Vo/NPR
The Rickshaw Dumpling Truck...
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The UpendED interview series launches: Lisa Paul...
The weekly UpendED interview series will feature an entrepreneur in the mobile space who has an unique perspective perspective on the mobile vending industry.
For our inaugural post, we’re featuring Ice Pop Art founder Lisa Paul of Toronto, Ontario. Paul is a chef by trade as well as acting Director of Communications at Trinity College and a freelance writer for publications including The...
April 2012
7 posts
Possibly the most badass wedding in recent meme... →
The couple that plays together (and bowls and DJs together) will stay together longer than the rest of the token bride/groomzillas of the world.
