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The death of a Vancouver food-truck operation a cause for grieving in this foodie city

March 9th, 2012 · 28 Comments

The announcement by Coma Food Truck operator Jay Cho that he is winding up operations tomorrow provoked an outpouring of eating and grief this week by his many fans.

Cho is giving up because he didn’t get selected for a permanent spot for the second year in a row. Although he seems to be successful with his mobile permit and would have been automatically renewed for that this year, he says it’s too hard. And, I get the sense, he’s also feeling really rejected.

I wasn’t part of the taste-testing prior to the selection of 12 lucky operators for permanent spots out of the 59 applicants, so I don’t know how his food ranked against them. But I can say that his Korean barbecue tacos were WAY better than what I had at LA food trucks — less salty, with moister meat, and with the spiciness cut by a nice heaping of some kind of Korean cole slaw on top.

My first-ever foray into bibimbap at his truck was also an above average meal. Burp.

Sorry to see you go, Jay. (He’s at 8th and Ash today, according to tweets. If you read this in time, hustle down. And somewhere in Kits tomorrow.) But I’ll be looking for Alessandro Vianello’s new food truck, which he describes in my story.

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Glissando Remmy

    Thought of The Day

    “Vision Vancouver tells Comatose Trucker ‘You’ll be fine!’ and then… pulls the plug.”

    Business was jinxed from the start.
    What can one expect from a patient who’s in a “Coma” anyway? To live forever?
    Or suggests, that by eating the food, you’ll get into one?
    Was he serving food to people already in a “Coma”? Hard to say.

    Having said, the fact that Vision pulled the plug on his respirator… helped. One truck down… how many left ‘To Go” please?

    We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

  • Silly Season

    LOL! Ah, Glissy….

  • Let’s be critical

    I think this reporting is superficial at best. Frances, have you spent the time to better understand the rigorous selection process of food carts in Vancouver or are you simply taking one example and over-generalizing? have you talked to one of the 12 who WERE selected to make sure your reporting is actually digging deeper???

  • Frances Bula

    @Let’s. If you read my story carefully, you’ll notice that I did describe the city’s judging process and make it clear that others, also well qualified, were rejected yet were going to keep trying. Clearly, this was Jay’s choice to quit because he was mad about not being chosen two years in a row. Shall we not report anything because the person expressing his opinion and decision is not in accordance with yours?

  • Anne

    Grieving? Really?!? I have been underwhelmed by the food trucks so far.

  • Let’s be critical

    “describe the process” is also a superficial way of really seeking to understand its layers.
    You can report whatever you want. and clearly do. but at least put some effort into it, not just a silly tag line without substance.

  • Julia

    Do you think there is an assumption by staff that a mobile permit is as lucrative as a permanent location?

    The story I got about the selection process was it was thorough and fair. Locations for the taste tested finalists were handed out by lottery.

  • Michelle

    Let’s #3
    “I think this reporting is superficial at best.”
    No it’s not.
    I wonder, hmmm, out of the 200 community volunteer positions, how many were filled with Vision insiders esspecially in the ones that matter UDP, DPB, VCPC, Heritage, Economic Development , Arts, Board of Variance… so?

  • Everyman

    Why the “greenest city” encourages food served from fume-spewing trucks is a mystery. As is the fact they do it at the expense of bricks and mortar restaurants that pay them a lot of taxes.

  • Mira

    Excellent remark Everyman #8,
    Many times I went by those food trucks and with no exception they were idling the engine … wasn’t there a bylaw for that already? Like a max of 3-5 min? Huh, City Hall?
    If you add to that the one time use (waste) cutlery/ plastic and paper you realize what a total joke this Bozo of a Mayor and his Clowncillors brought upon Vancouver. Transformed a nice city into an amusement park.
    Then I read what City Deputy Manager Sadhu says “It’s like an experiment for us , case by case…” or something like that. No, no, no your highness you are paid North of $200 grands per year to experiment? Then pay yourselves Training Wages, like you pay the entry level trainees… What a disgrace this Vision appointed management is!

  • Rick Peterson

    Hi Frances – interesting story, but I have a hard time digesting it, and the attention it’s getting, at a time and in a place where we’ve got kids going to school hungry in the morning, or depend on subsidized lunches at school as the only meal of the day, or depending on Food Bank donations for after-school snacks. Every time I read the term “foodie” anywhere, it makes me wince and realize, I guess, that it’s simply a sign of unbridled affluence and superficial attention on things that probably are important to the famous one per cent of the population that the Occupy movement could have been referring to . Let’s move on to much better issues than this one that you normally cover in this space.
    Thx.

  • Higgins

    “Vision Vancouver tells Comatose Trucker ‘You’ll be fine!’ and then… pulls the plug.”
    Glissy 1,
    you almost made me drop my coffee from laughter. Great observation skills.
    And here, Everyman#8,
    has got something “Why the “greenest city” encourages food served from fume-spewing trucks is a mystery.”
    Asking the city administration is asking the wrong people.
    Read here Mira#9:
    http://m.ctv.ca/bc/20120309/bc_are_food_carts_hurting_restaurant_industry_120309.html
    “Deputy city manager Sadhu Johnston says officials will be watching how businesses do, and may stop short of the total number of licences approved by council.
    We are learning as we go. We certainly don’t have all the answers,” he said.
    I agree WTF are we paying this punk $200,000+ of our money to learn how to do his job? That’s my question everyone!

  • Frances Bula

    @Rick. It’s the one and only story I’ve written on food trucks in 15 years of coverage. I think that I’ve got the balance about right.

  • Julia

    Frances, the last time I checked, your name is at the top of the blog. When it’s your house, you can talk about anything you jolly well feel like it.

  • Everyman

    @Rick Peterson 11
    That’s unfair. Given the amount of hoopla the city ahs made over the program Frances’ coverage is restrained. Sadly its true we’ve become a society where young women taking iphone photos of their food seems to counts as “culture”, but that is not FaBula’s fault.

  • Frances Bula

    @Julia. But people do have a right to call me out on what I pay attention to. Sometimes they think reporters have super-powers and I have to gently explain they don’t (wish I could write three times as much as I do and then have another life left over for deep investigations, but still working on my invention for that), but it’s all part of the exciting new media world that there’s a discussion about what’s covered and what’s not.

  • Rick Peterson

    @Frances and @Julia – of course, you’re both right, and points well taken. It’s the whole “foodie” culture that I have an issue with, and not really the fact that Frances highlighted it here on this blog, which of course she can and should do – and once in 15 years is indeed a good balance, Frances, for this story. (Is there a food truck that serves crow that I should know about?)

    @Everyman – you’ve framed it well. The City’s hoopla over this food truck program, and the Vision people pointing out how this was one of their stellar accomplishments during the last civic election campaign, are ridiculous. But, as Glissando Remmy points out, this is Vancouver, and we’re used to keeping busy with trivial things like this.

  • Max

    What I find interesting – food trucks granted street permits and that are parked on the streets, not only pay ‘rent’ but also have to plug any parking meters they occupy.

    I found this out while visiting one of the trucks over by the Art Gallery.

    Have to admit, I was gobsmacked.

  • Julia

    the permit fee and parking is peanuts compared to rent/taxes paid by the neighbours. While I love the variety – the food trucks should illustrate how tough it is out there for the bricks and mortar.

  • Zinc

    Don’t know much about this, but don’t like them. The vile smell of some and the sidewalk funelling effect. Making the city very un-walking friendly. , like the poor pedestrian design of the cambie bridge. At least there are stairs on the Burrard bridge. Lower salaries equals more intelligence in bureacrats??

  • Morry

    Coma Coma and hear my story

    Here’s the moral and the story
    From the vendor who knows
    I fell in love and my cart food still grows
    Ask any vendor that ever had a cart
    They’ll say, keep away from a-runaround City

  • Terry m

    Morry @20
    There OSA reason why we all here leave the poetry to… Glissando Remmy! 🙂

  • Higgins

    Ha, ha, ha @ Terry m #21
    Second that!
    What were you thinking Morry?
    Glissy could you please help Morry with some rhyme? 🙂

  • Morry

    @Hiigins and Terry

    I was laying the ground for our Master Rhymer …

  • Glissando Remmy

    Jesus guys (Terry and Higgins) I think Morry did a pretty good job, not everything has to rhyme, you have to get the message out, that’s what matters!
    And the Dion clip was a perfect addition, Morry!

    Now, having said that, with your permission and because you’ve inspired me, I am going to play a bit with your verse…
    Here it is:

    “Coma, Coma Where Art Thou?”

    Sire, please sit, and hear from Morry,
    Hear the moral, and here’s the story,
    From the vendor who knows of its glory,
    I fell in love once, in my youth, I was,
    Both my heart, and my cart food still grows,
    Ask any vendor that ever had a cart
    They’ll say, keep away from a-runaround City,
    Where ‘me life’ is tattooed ‘nitty-gritty’,
    It’s a pity, it’s a pity, it’s a pity…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jefJpr-3no
    🙂
    GR

  • Morry

    GR 😉
    A1+

  • phatpooch

    THE SERVANT’S OF HOPE SOCIETY
    The majority of the people involved with helping this cause had a history of substance abuse and a high percentage of those people came from the Downtown East side

    The Servants of Hope is a non profit charity that has been helping the people of Vancouver’s downtown east side for the past 6 years. Alongside hot meals and warm coats they serve up a sense of hope and a chance at a new life. Below is a video link from Christmas 2012 over one hundred people came together to feed the homeless and do outreach we served over one thousand people that night

  • Bill Lee

    What about “The New Economics of Pop-Up Restaurants” (in San Francisco, after food trucks)
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204276304577263813654892788.html