In a dirt lot off Airport Road near Dollar General, a blue food truck sits with a red open sign beaming from the top right corner of the unit. A truck pulls up with music lightly playing from the vehicle’s window. The driver steps out, orders his food and drives off shortly after.
That scenario could change, with new efforts underway to establish “civic plazas” for food trucks on the Southside that would include: tables and seating; opportunities for community gathering; cultural performances and vaccination clinics.
“What we’re looking to do is talk to food truck owners and operators, survey commercial business interest, survey customers and talk to the landowners,” Earth Care Co-Director Miguel Acosta, whose organization focuses on community development, says. “We want input from our stakeholders, and we can also use it as an opportunity to increase the local conversation around community economic development.” Acosta tells SFR the team hired a local surveyor to do a preliminary analysis to study the idea with the help of a portion of a $35,000 McCune Charitable Foundation grant.
Rigo’s Gorditas and More food truck owner Rigoberto Hidalgo tells SFR he’s in support of the efforts, saying people have asked for tables since he first opened the business three years ago.
“As a business that believes in always attending to our customers well, the priority is to make the customer feel like they’re at home,” Hidalgo says in Spanish. “So we did it at first, and the city came and told us to take the tables down.”
He adds he’s wanted to bring the food truck vendors together to talk with city officials about allowing for tables.
“It’s a little unfair because they don’t implement the law on every truck,” Hidalgo says. “There are plenty of trucks downtown that have tables; however, the city doesn’t ask them to remove the tables. Only here on Airport Road.”
City of Santa Fe Code Compliance Supervisor Jason Sena says that’s not an accurate characterization of the situation. Rather, he tells SFR, many of the food trucks downtown—such as the ones near the Roundhouse and Kaune’s Neighborhood Market—have tables because a nearby business has a patio with tables and chairs and allows those who buy food from the mobile vendors to sit and eat there.
“It’s hard because there’s more food trucks on Airport than there are up north, but my inspectors go out all over the city,” Sena says. “It’s not that we’re picking on them, it’s just something in the ordinance and it’s a life safety thing. I would hate for some people to be sitting out there enjoying their meal and a car drives up and plows into them.”
Andres Romero, the code enforcement officer tasked with Airport Road and the surrounding area, tells SFR he estimates he only issues a citation regarding tables and chairs outside food trucks once a year. While he wishes the law “would be a little more lenient,” he says he’s “just here to do my job.”
Sena adds he’d “surely support” the idea to create civic plazas, but ultimately it’s up to the City Council.
District 4 Councilor Jamie Cassutt tells SFR she’s been working on an update to the 2015 food truck ordinance and code for a couple of years—efforts that started after she heard from constituents about the lack of tables and chairs—but there’s still work to be done.
“Something that we’re very interested in as we look at opportunities for dynamism in different parts of the city is where we might be able to bring in food trucks to a specific area where we can have communities enjoy it,” Cassutt says. “Miguel has been such a wonderful resource in working with the various vendors and bringing back some of the feedback of the challenges that they’re experiencing so that we can move forward. We want to make it streamlined in terms of city processes, more accessible to the public and really provide the opportunity for the public to have an enjoyable food truck experience.”
Following updates, she says, the city would need to identify either a private or public property to make a civic plaza happen. From there, Interim Land Use Director Heather Lamboy tells SFR the city staff would have to review a development plan to make sure all necessary standards are met, including safe access to the property and Americans with Disabilities Act compliance. She adds the department would need to “buffer any impacts” to adjacent residential and commercial properties if music was involved.
“In concept, certainly we’re supportive,” Lamboy says. “As long as they met all the standards.”
Acosta says he suspects some of the struggle or delay with creating civic plazas could come through brick and mortar restaurants not supporting the proposal due to increased competition. Greater Santa Fe Restaurant Association Executive Director John Bradbury tells SFR that restaurants have not expressed concerns to him about food trucks and tables.
“I think there are probably some. The food truck is mobile, and that might be where a brick and mortar restaurant is, and that might be interesting, problematic or even beneficial,” Bradbury says. “I think the Southside is a great place for food trucks to sort of emerge and be relevant. There’s some kind of cool stuff happening there.”
He adds the association will work with food trucks at an upcoming event in September.
Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce President Bridget Dixson tells SFR she has not heard concerns from restaurants either, but she doesn’t believe efforts related to food trucks would impact or increase competition for them.
“I really feel the food truck is the new answer to fast food, and it can be done in a very, very healthy way, so I don’t feel like it’s a direct competition for restaurants,” Dixson says. “I think it would be amazing if we did have some sort of food truck area where you could have a centralized seating area, almost like a food hall concept.”