Who Hates a Hot Dog? Parking Mandates Ban a Beloved Food Truck
(Source: Hot Dog House FL)
Since when did a hot dog need a parking space?
I love a good hot dog. I especially love a good dog after a hard day of working in the yard or spending time on the beach. My mouth waters just thinking of a dog in a soft bun, topped with some creative extras. In my opinion, it is the best meal to grab on the go. One might consider the hot dog as quintessential of an American food as apple pie.
I love talking and learning more about the hard-working people who have made businesses out of a trailer or truck offering these meaty delights. Each has a unique story on a common journey, which starts with taking a big risk investing in a micro business and continues with nurturing that dream into a profitable business. This business model makes the hot dog even more apt as a national symbol, as building a profitable business with a small cash investment and lots of sweat equity embodies the American dream.
A hot dog stand or food truck has one of the lowest bars of entry into the restaurant business, allowing many people to begin their pursuit of the American dream. Food trucks are a smaller investment and (if they fail) a smaller failure compared to a brick-and-mortar location. Their scale and mobility help lessen the impact of failure and allow for a lot of experimentation: A food truck can literally travel with your customers to meet them where they work or play. You can test new locations and change up recipes. Generally, these micro businesses are family run and begin with minimal or no employees. Success is measured as customers seeking out the food truck, rather than the food truck having to seek out customers. This is a small bet that once you break into the market, your customers will expect to find you in the same place.
Food trucks are also willing to go where no one else can or will go. They will go to the large parking lot on the edge of town where the Kmart or Walmart once stood. They will go to the streets where a bank would not finance an investment in a restaurant. Food trucks will slip into the office park or the busy downtown corner that lacks any leasable space for restaurants. They will show up at the boat launch, the beach or the park on busy holiday weekends so you never have to cover up or wash off the sand to get a bite to eat.
As hungry consumers, we become familiar with the locations where our favorite trucks hang out and eventually expect to see them. The really good ones become a community fixture as they save to graduate to a fixed location.
One of my high school friends took the leap and invested in a food truck in northeast Florida — Fernandina Beach, to be exact. Hot Dog House FL is a family-run hot dog truck that embodies the great American spirit, and I have enjoyed watching their business grow. They are really good at sharing their story through social media and have almost 2,000 followers. Since their start, they have explored different menu items and experimented in various locations and local events. They also have a huge heart for their community. Customers can buy a "Nassau Special," where they pre-pay for for a combo for someone in need. Any left-over funds are donated to local charities that support those in need in the broader community. Although Hot Dog House FL is on wheels, it is a permanent fixture in Fernandina Beach.
At the beginning of March, Hot Dog House FL found a new temporary home adjacent to a quintessential Florida resort town fruit stand — the ones that are under a tent with a handful of handmade signs along the highway. These are the places the snowbirds flock to and the locals trust to have both the best-tasting and best-priced fruits and vegetables.
The fruit stand has been operating on a tiny little lot on State Road A1A for over 15 years. The parcel is zoned Commercial General, which allows for a variety of commercial uses, including both fruit stands and food trucks. The fruit stand is at the front of the property and has a sandy dirt loop behind the stand. Most folks roll in, grab what they need and leave.
Hot Dog House FL started sharing this small lot with this fruit stand. (Source: Google Maps)
A fruit stand and a food truck go together like peanut butter and jelly. Both are temporary in character but very permanent in their devotion to their community. They have similar customers and can split the modest rent for this lot. For these resort communities, this is the third place you go to learn about community happenings. If it's going to be a rainy day, these vendors may not open, but they make sure everyone knows by word of mouth and through social media. These are also the last places to close before a hurricane and generally the first places to reopen to serve their community after the storm.
I have to admit that Fernandina Beach is one of my favorite places to visit in Florida. This barrier island is a throwback to Old Florida and the time before the theme parks and ever-widening highways. This is where Flager began the Florida East Coast Railroad, and much of the historical charm and character remain. Just south of the city is a narrow island full of resorts and vacation homes nestled under the canopy of shade trees. You just get the vacation and relaxed Florida vibe the moment you hit A1A.
Nassau County takes great pride in the natural habitat and tree canopy of the island. The county has adopted strict development standards and tree preservation rules to protect that character. This barrier island is not an easy place to develop, so each decision is deliberate and thought out. It is very unlikely that this small lot will ever develop into anything other than a fruit stand.
In the weeks after the hot dog truck settled in at their new location, a barbecue truck joined the party. This addition of low-and-slow is accompanied by the intoxicatingly sweet smell of hardwood smoke that lures in the hungry like moths to a flame. It also attracts complaints from the residents of the adjacent subdivision. For these neighbors, the woodsmoke from the barbecue is a legitimate nuisance, and they have the right to complain to the county. According to the county’s zoning regulations, no odor, fumes or steam detectable to normal senses is permitted off the premises. This is a subjective but reasonable requirement: if you smell it, it’s not permitted.
Nassau County is like many other municipalities — once a complaint is filed, an investigation ensues. These residents’ complaints to the county began a code enforcement process. After the initial inspection notice was given to everyone that they needed to permanently cease operations at the location — less than a month after Hot Dog House FL first parked their truck there. The code that was cited in this complaint: not enough parking.
The physical layout of this location has not changed much in the 15 years since the fruit stand first put up its tent. During that time, other food trucks have joined the party to provide goods not readily available on the island. The scale of the operation is comparable to the postage stamp size of the site. Most shoppers spend about 10 minutes there before moving along on their way.
So what is the big deal with requiring the fruit stand and the food truck to meet the county’s parking mandate? Besides the hundreds of thousands of dollars to engineer, seek approval for and construct the parking, the site would have to be dramatically transformed. The paved parking area would need to accommodate not only the parking of cars, but also the driveway and the space to turn around vehicles of various sizes. A roadside fruit stand would have to become more like a dollar store. The site would soon be consumed by asphalt.
Assuming these small businesses had the deep pockets to develop this site — and the site was large enough to accommodate all of the various development requirements — what is to prevent the barbecue truck and its low-and-slow smoke from returning?
This site allows for a low bar of entry into the American dream and for a lot of small bets. As with all small bets, there will be some failures, but little bets equal little failures. The barbecue truck resulted in a situation that upset the adjacent residents, which can be described as a little failure. Instead of waving around a parking requirement, code enforcement could have simply explained that no odor or fumes can be detectable off the premises. This site would not be a success for the barbecue truck, and it would simply roll to a different location on the island. However, citing the issue as a parking violation created a much larger failure, which prohibits the fruit stand and any future vendors from operating at this location.
It's unfortunate that our mandated approach toward development yields such a complicated system. This modern development approach restricts the next increment of development. Our cities were traditionally built over time through many small bets. Everything from tents to small wooden shacks were small bets on a dream. These entrepreneurs took lots of small risks to address local needs. In this case, 15 years ago, a small fruit stand opened, providing fresh fruits and vegetables that weren't available elsewhere on the island. Today, a parking requirement stops that and could force residents to leave the island.
Fortunately for Hot Dog House FL, their loyal customers were able to help them find a new location, alleviating some of the strain these parking mandates placed on the owners. The fate of the fruit stand remains uncertain.
If you want to help protect your own community’s beloved micro businesses, click below to find a Local Conversation near you.
Edward Erfurt is the Director of Community Action at Strong Towns. He is a trained architect and passionate urban designer with over 20 years of public- and private-sector experience focused on the management, design, and successful implementation of development and placemaking projects that enrich the tapestry of place. He believes in community-focused processes that are founded on diverse viewpoints, a concern for equity, and guided through time-tested, traditional town-planning principles and development patterns that result in sustainable growth with the community character embraced by the communities which he serves.