Launchings, Reopenings, and Cleveland - News

Wow! We have some news for you.

Spudnik has landed! A week or so ago, I was able to see Spudnik in real life. I had heard about the new truck - Potato Champion's new mobile cart - for awhile now and it was wonderful to see it rollin' down the street and setting up for an event. Just think, amazingly fresh Belgian fries with poutine at your local event or monthly gathering. They just may be there. Follow @PotatoChampion
on Twitter for location updates. _______________

Parkers Waffles and Coffee have opened a second location at NE 18th and Alberta. If you visit on Saturday, Feb 20th, the first 50 people get free waffles. I love to hear about expansion in the food cart business. Open every day 7:30am-2pm and Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 7:30pm -2am. _______________

Speaking of expansion, Garden State has opened their second location at Mississippi Marketplace on N Mississippi and Skidmore this past week. Menu as advertised on Facebook: Chickpea Fries $2; Fried Calamari $5; Meatball Hero $6.50; Chickpea Sandwich $6.50 and more. We'll be visiting soon to check it out and try out the old faves from the new cart. _______________

A couple of great carts have reopened after winter break. Moxie RX on N Mississippi and Shaver and Wy'east Pizza out off SE 50th and Kelly (just 3 blocks north of Powell) are open and ready to serve. Let's welcome them back.

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Nuevo Mexico is rocking the Mississippi Marketplace of late and wants you to be aware when they are open. There have been comments about their hours, so Jesse has been actively Tweeting his hours daily. If your on Twitter, follow @NuevoMexicoPDX
for the latest updates. Those updates will also show up in our sidebar. _______________

We got an email from Kir Jensen at The Sugar Cube and she is set to open on March 3rd. Their cute pink cart up at Mississippi Marketplace suffered a little during the freeze we had this winter, so they have been actively doing repairs. Some of the items we'll see on the spring menu include smoothies, shakes and floats, a brownie sundae, cherry pie and some old favorites like the triple threat ice cream sandwich with salted caramel. See you for dessert. _______________

It's hard to believe some cities still outlaw food carts. Many of them made carts all but illegal through zoning and other laws decades ago. The idea then was that streets needed to be squeaky clean and controlled (much like shopping malls) and that carts were dirty and "urban blight". Sheesh. Anyway, many cities are wising up and reversing their anti-cart laws, albeit some are taking baby steps. The City of Cleveland is doing a food cart pilot project to allow 5 new "Pod Locations" downtown and on the busting Case Western Reserve University urban campus. The idea is to spur micro-economic development and bring positive active uses to under functioning areas of the city. They are currently taking applications for vendors if anyone out there is interested. Besides the horrible winter weather, we've heard Cleveland is actually a pretty cool city with lots of arts, culture, music and a diverse population as well as a burgeoning local foods scene. The city is also offering grants and very low interest loans up to $15K per cart, and grants up to $2500 per cart to have local artists decorate the carts. That's kind of cool. Wouldn't it be neat if the City of Portland did something like that too? Anyway, more info is available here.


Happy Carting!