New York City Food Carts Get Their First Report Cards

The carts are an eyesore and have a smelly 3rd world feel to them. They don't pay rent or taxes but take business from restaurants that do.

All these folks contrasting carts in favor of restaurants! As if you know what goes on in the back kitchens! Its not the idyllic picture that these commenters paint

To all the commenters who would never deign to visit a foodcart, you are missing a a real urban treat. I've worked in midtown for many years and enjoy various food carts at least once week - including today as it happens. Never gotten ill - not one time.

I often got my morning coffee and roll at a cart that smelled of bug spray. I stopped when I got a new job that included free coffee. I welcome Health Department inspections of food carts.

There are a number of comments essentially dismissing the value of the new food cart inspections by questioning the conditions of the storage spaces where the vans are kept off-hours and those where the food is kept prior to being in the van that day. But acccording to that logic, what would be the point of restauramt inspections either - and for that matter, why bother.cleaning the supermarket at all, and why bother keeping our home refrigerators and cupboards clean, since all that food was also somewhere else first? Even if you grow/ raise all your own food. Gardens, barns, coops and yards are full of vermin too. Some exposure to germs is an inevitable part of life and an essential part of developing resistance. The inspections are a good thing!

But do they inspect the beat up white van parked around the corner that is used to store the extra food? We natives call them 'ptomaine on bun'.

Food trucks in upstate New York have been inspected by County Health Departments in recent years.

Any forward thinking vendor, such as Ahmed Eltawil, would not only welcome this but would request it. A couple of illness outbreaks attributable to one or two trucks could quickly and harshly impact all trucks. "The government" is not the evil in every area that many seem to suspect. The government is actually all of us if we demand it be so and stop falling prey to those with hidden agendas.

Health inspections and grading are a good idea. These vendors are essential restauranteurs to museum attendees and average workers who cannot afford the high prices of museum "cafeterias" and even the fast-food restaurants like McDonald's. The days of NYC's inexpensive counter venues like Nedick's and Chock-full-o-nuts, or sit-downs like Horn and Hardart cafeterias or even higher but still moderate-priced sit-downs like Schrafft's are, sadly long since disappeared individualized culinary delights for on the go workers or those not on expense accounts, never to return. The carts will never replace them but do provide a quick inexpensive nourishment for museum visitors workers, and tourists, especially with families.

Not a chance that ANY Food Cart in New York overnights in a clean space. Not a chance.

Good initiative, long overdue.

Far more important than the condition of the cart itself are the conditions of the places in which these carts are stored and prepped. I knew one of the NYPD officers who was given the job of going with the teams on inspections of the cart storage locations. He was quite clear about what he found, telling me that because of the conditions he encountered whenever he now sees people eating food from carts he has to combat the strong urge to throw up. It is that bad. Having lived near several erstwhile cart storage locations, I can testify to the stench and the plague of rats they brought. Also. the habit venders have of illegally tossing their ashes and coals into the sewer at the corner also leads to massive back-up problems when rains come. This all must be addressed of the inspections are partial at best. https://emcphd.wordpress.com

It might be wise for inspectors to visit the storage garages where the carts sit overnight...just sayin’

I’ll buy only baked goods from a food cart, bagel, donut, croissant. That’s it.

I work in midtown, and there are many food carts. Some bigger operations, some solo entrepreneurs selling sliced mango in the summer or others making candied nuts and coconut. Although I buy an occasional coffee from a cart, I cannot imagine buying "food" from one. As for real diners and restaurants and store fronts, if I enter and first use your bathroom and it isn't spotless, I'm out the door. I've battled intestinal parasites and gastroenteritis twice in my time. Neither is fun. If a person happens to have a compromised immune system, either could be potentially lethal.

The food carts in this city are nothing better than an eye sore. The same three trucks are in front of my building at Atlantic Terminal every single day. Every night two extra long vans take the spot of the food trucks to reserve the parking spot for the next day. All three are owned by the same company and occasionally, one parks in front of the crosswalk. The company that owns all three is based out of Rutherford NJ and all the workers on the trucks are residents of NJ, so no local benefit. Next door to my building a small diner sits vacant as it has for years because the food trucks corner the building and do not have to pay rent nor taxes for that matter. I am sure the workers are not protected by any NYC laws thus giving them a drastically unfair advantage to all of the true local vendors that are in the community. These trucks and their owners are no less than parasites.

I live in NYC for over 40 years. I never ate from a hot dog cart or any food truck. Some years ago, a food cart parked on the corner of my residential building in mid-town- thankfully, not for long. I observed in disguise how the cook dropped food on the sidewalk and reused to later serve his customers. The plastic gloves used to sever only appears to only protect their hands. I observed the cook handling and touching all sorts of instruments, coolers, food, energy provider, waste basket never changing the gloves. In two occasions, I made a short vide—o when food felt off the crate into the sidewalk when being delivered to the food cart from a Van. The food was later used to serve the lunch customers! I never ate from these carts before nor I will ever do it. I personally think that these carts makes the sidewalk unpleasant looking, often leaving oil stains on the sidewalk, added to the horrible smell in the air. I am not going to go any further here except, remind the tourists to check their change for the cash payments! Short change trick has been observed by several carts around Central Park.

The carts at the City College charge a fee for credit card purchases but don't tell their customers about it.

I don't believe food carts should be on the streets of New York. They clog up the narrow sidewalks, paying no rent for their use. In summer, many people don't like the smell of some of the foods drifting in the air. Also, the carts compete with restaurants. While restaurants have to pay hefty taxes on how much they sell based on the cash register sales, the carts have no cash registers and can make up any figure to the IRS.

I think that all food carts should be required to post their prices, which is apparently not the case.

Close to an apartment where I housesit is a fenced-in "parking lot" for food carts. I am sorry to say I see rats running all around and through those carts, and I don't imagine that this would show up in an inspection report.

I would always go only to busy carts where I knew there was a large turnover and food would not be sitting, cooked, in the open for long. Of course I had my favorite, a block from the office, that I would patronize once a week. It was worth waiting on a long line.

While I’m as sympathetic as the next guy to the various struggles NYC’s cart owners face, the fact that Mr. Shapiro or anyone at http://streetvendor.org/ would imply that somehow the public shouldn’t see inspection reports for ALL foodservice operators (including those who happen to do their business from mobile facilities) is outrageous. Sanitation is sanitation. It doesn’t matter if foodborne illness comes from a high end dinnerhouse or a hot dog cart. In our crowded urban world we need more, not less, enforcement.

I wonder how food carts that don't have sinks or bathrooms for their cooks could ever get an A rating? I worked near several in Times Square for many yrs and the few employees that went there swore by them but I would never go. To be fair to the carts, I have been sick on several occasions from regular restaurants too.

To us out of towners, where food carts do not exist, New York’s food carts all get A’s. They’re there for us in a pinch. They smell good on a brisk, wintry day when darkness falls too early. The vendors are friendly with us. They give our kids treats for which we bribe. They are comfort food providers - stuff we don’t get “back home”. In the summer their stuff cools us off temporarily and in the winter it warms us up. Face it, they fill the gap instead of a more costly restaurant meal. There’s just something that says “welcome back” when you’re on the street with those tiny little houses on wheels offering a bite to eat on your terms, after not being in NYC for awhile. Thanks, food carts. Carry on!

In general, I do not trust the probity of city food inspectors. But if they do their work conscientiously and honestly, it may add a cachet to food-card vendors.