It's a Sunday afternoon in late July. The sky is finally beginning to clear, but it's been raining on and off all day and the air is still thick with humidity. At Woodbine Park—the unofficial dividing line between the Beach and Leslieville neighbourhoods in East Toronto—crowds churn through the mud-soaked terrain in flip flops and Birkenstocks, while concert-style speakers blare live covers of recent top 40 hits. The park isn’t as busy as it was during yesterday's sunshine and blue skies, but the third annual Toronto Food Truck Festival is still in full swing.
We’re here on a mission to learn what it’s like to own a food truck in Toronto. Today over 150 vendors are listed on Toronto Food Trucks, and by all accounts, the community is growing every year. If you’ve watched any Food Network show over the last five years or so, you get the intrigue: the food truck is the new American dream. It’s a symbol of entrepreneurship: part DIY, part punk and 100% passion. Here in TO, we’ve heard a lot of rumblings about laws being relaxed for street vendors—but even now, we’re still in the market for that thriving street food culture perfected by our southern neighbours in Austin, Miami and Los Angeles.
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Here’s the thing: those cities are all known for their warm weather vibes. And the more we chat with the vendors at the Toronto Food Truck Festival, the more meteorology comes into play. "We're very weather dependent," says Frank Mazzonetto, chef and owner at Frankie Fettuccine, when asked about the downsides of food truck life. Lou Mouzakis, one half of the husband-and-wife team behind Meltdown Cheesery, agrees: "Last year we did a whole lot better. This year, the weather was a factor." But while downpours like today’s aren’t ideal for food truck owners, they take them in their stride. "What can you do?" Mouzakis shrugs. "That's something that's beyond your control."
On the bright side—pun not intended—weather isn’t the only thing that determines a food truck’s success. Demand for street food-style cuisine is only growing in Ontario, and that’s not just down to city-dwellers. Since the Toronto Food Truck Festival launched three years ago, the event has expanded to include weekends in Pickering and Richmond Hill; the festival is free to attend, but attendees have the option of donating to Sick Kids. The festival’s executive director, Ben Freeman, says that these first forays into the ‘burbs are just the start. “We’re currently looking for a location for next year,” he explains. “We have a shortlist, and we’re going to be expanding out to another area probably west of the GTA.”
If you take Tom Antonorakis’s word for it, that growth outside Toronto is more than welcome. Antonorakis is the co-owner of Buster’s Sea Cove, the popular St. Lawrence Market restaurant that’s been taking its food to the streets for the last five years. For Buster’s Sea Cove, building a bigger audience was the whole point of venturing into food truck life. “We just wanted more people to try our food, take it all over Toronto and Ontario,” says Antonorakis. It’s a strategy that other established restaurants are picking up on. Salad King is operating a food truck this summer to celebrate the restaurant’s 25th anniversary, and Steve Gonzalez is previewing the concept of his new Baro restaurant from the street.
For most of the vendors we spoke with, the secret to food truck success in Toronto is a split between public events and private catering. Jose Coronel, the industry veteran behind 22-year-old La Fiesta Catering, explains: “We have a regular location, but most of the time we work in the summer at events like this.” Jessica Smith of Niagara-based Alfie’s Lemonade agrees: “I feel like it’s more festivals… We even used to do concerts and things like that.” But Smith finds that it can be competitive to get involved. “There’s a few smoothie and juice people out there that like, if they get it first, then I kinda gotta wait till they get out.” The competition can be even more fierce among traditional food trucks.
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On the other hand, Mazzonetto points out, “We do most of our business during the week. Corporate catering, a lot of office buildings provide lunch for their tenants. Also a lot of private catering, weddings and some of the higher end stuff.” Debbie Mouzakis adds that sometimes festival business even leads to private work. “We get some people we actually recognize from different festivals and whatnot,” she says. “And then we get requests for catering from them as well, so it’s good.”
And for all that it may seem like a cutthroat industry, Toronto's food truck community is a tightly knit one. Says Smith: “We kind of stick together all as a family. Like if we do a show or a festival and it’s not so great, we kind of give each other a heads up.” Mrs. Mouzakis agrees. “There’s a lot of camaraderie, and it’s a really big community now. It grows each year. So for the most part, everyone’s like one big happy family.”
With friends like these, it sounds like an industry that can weather the storms.
