Food Carts Catching Flak

In June 2008, the journalist and one-time candidate for Portland City Council State Representative Mark Kirchmeier decided to add another title to his resume: restaurateur. He opened the Krakow Café and Pub on North Interstate Avenue, serving what he calls “liberal arts sandwiches” – Reubens and Italianos, along with pierogies and a wide selection of foreign beer – to a clientele of Kaiser Permanente employees and residents of the Overlook neighborhood.

For a while, things were going well. Then, the recession happened. In fall 2008, business dropped 40 percent, Kirchmeier says. But that wasn’t the death knell. That didn’t ring for another year, when the Mississippi Marketplace food cart pod opened at North Mississippi Avenue and Skidmore Street. With the Krakow Café already struggling to stay afloat, the increased competition from the city’s exceedingly popular mobile eateries finally put it under.

“It hurt me,” Kirchmeier said, “and it also told me that the future wasn’t going to be any better.”

Indeed, there are currently 534 licensed food carts in Multnomah County, with applications for 82 more under planned review. Even John Hamilton, vice president of communications for the restaurant lobbying group the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association, admits that Portland has surpassed other major cities as the No.1 spot for food carts in the country.

But Kirchmeier insists he isn’t harboring sour grapes. For him, it’s just about consistency. Although Multnomah County licenses them as “mobile food units,” many carts stay put in a single location, and yet aren’t subject to the same kind of expensive fees and regulations that conventional stationary restaurants face. With low overhead and relatively miniscule startup costs – outside of the purchase price for a vehicle, all a would-be food cart entrepreneur needs is an operating license from the county, which runs between $315 and $345 – the carts are able to serve quickly made, high-quality food at cheap prices, putting traditional brick-and-mortar restaurants like the Krakow Café at a significant disadvantage.

“Should the same regulations be applied to food carts? I’m inclined to say yes,” Kirchmeier said.

In terms of sanitation and how the food is handled, the carts are held to the same standards as restaurants and receive twice-yearly inspections, according to the Multnomah County Health Department. But other costly requirements that apply to restaurants, such as maintaining plumbing for an on-site restroom and a three-sink hand washing facility, do not pertain to carts. Kirchmeier wouldn’t necessarily have a problem with that, if most mobile food units would actually live up to their name. The county health department necessitates that all carts must have the ability to move at all hours of operation, but they are not obligated to relocate from one place to another at any specific intervals.

Hamilton agrees that there is an inconsistency with how these rules are applied. He says Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association is working with the county health department and the Oregon Department of Human Services to review food standards and may look specifically at food cart regulations beginning in September.

“I would say the majority of restaurants out there would fall in line with us philosophically, saying we’re for any business that adheres toward serving people in a safe manner and that is consistent in its regulations,” Hamilton said.

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