Exclusive Vending Contract Keeps Gourmet Food Trucks from Downtown
Recent news reports show El Paso continuing to make efforts to be more like bigger cities, but when it comes to cuisine-on-wheels, downtown is being left in the dust.
Gourmet food trucks have become a draw for urban cities like Austin, Portland and Los Angeles. From one spot, diners are able eat lobster macaroni-and-cheese, a dry-aged New York strip and creme brulee for dessert — all eaten with plastic utensils.
The idea was tried in El Paso not long ago, by Ian Atkins, the owner of Tom’s restaurant. Atkins renovated an air-stream, vintage food trailer, named “The Drifter.” It was not until later that Atkins learned he would not be able to bring “The Drifter” into downtown to sell his gourmet eats. The rights to all food sales on downtown streets belongs to one company only: Big Boy Ice Cream.
“It’s definitely a monopoly,” Atkins said. “But I don’t know that it’s a monopoly in the sense that it’s illegal.”
In a “special-privilege contract” between the City of El Paso and Big Boy, the rights to 20 pre-approved vending locations extending from the Border Highway to Franklin, have been sold to the company for five years. The contract was made in 2010. City council approved the contract after a bidding process and background checks.
“I think it’s one of the greatest contracts they have created in El Paso,” Big Boy president Daniel Morales said.
Morales says there was a time when vendors would show up in downtown, so many in fact, obstructing pedestrian traffic. He says some were not using proper health guidelines during food service, and in an attempt to create a sense of uniformity and order, the city put up for bid the rights to all food sales on the streets of downtown El Paso, to one single vendor.
After Big Boy was awarded the contract, they had to create and manufacture the green push carts seen throughout the city. According to the contract, only pre-packaged foods are allowed to be sold. The lack of variety and selection is another criticism of the special-privilege contract.
“Everything’s processed food, bags of chips, cotton candy, maybe like caramel apples,” Atkins said. “Nothing that could be considered healthy or fresh.”
Morales says the city did not want anything too expensive sold from the vendors in downtown. He said he had to present proposals of what food would be sold ahead of time, with prices affordable to the masses.
“A lot of the customers in the downtown area are from Mexico,” Morales said. “People that come from Mexico are not going to buy high-price food.”
ABC-7 was not able to obtain a comment from city officials regarding the contract.
The contract expires in 2015.
