Back on the 16th, Spencer Ackerman blogged about the Fojol Bros. food cart and on the 17th Amelia at Gradually Greener mentioned the SweetFlo mobile fro-yo cart. I haven’t been to either, but people seem to like both. And I have been enjoying the Korean cart on K Street west of 15th.
The point I would like to make about this is that if it seems like there’s been a recent explosion of food cart activity in DC, you’re not mistaken. And it’s not a coincidence either. The city loosened food cart regulations last summer and DC has been reaping the benefits ever since. Back in the day, whining about the paucity of good food carts used to be a staple DC whine. And while I wouldn’t say that the situation today is excellent, we’ve definitely bent the curve in the right direction. With the new wave of carts succeeding, and a giant recession destroying the economy of every US metro area except DC and Houston, we should expect to see more cart entrepreneurs coming to town bringing more competition and more pressure for quality.
The moral of the story is something that I like to emphasize—local government and politics matters more than you realize. If something about the place you live seems to suck, there’s probably a reason and a solution.
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