CALGARY FOODIES ARE HAPPY
Downturn prompts one optimistic entrepreneur to join vendors taking their treats
Emmanuel Guardado had always dreamed of starting his own food business, but it was only when he lost his job in the oil and gas industry that he decided to dive in.
“I got laid off from my job and figured, what better time to do a food truck?” he said.
Seeing almost no food options in Calgary from his native El Salvador, Guardado set his theme around the street foods of his homeland, including the stuffed tortillas known as pupusas.
Hitting the road in April, Guardado has now joined the ranks of food truck owners lured by the flexibility and relatively low startup costs as the industry shifts from buzzy upstart to an established category in the Canadian food landscape.
In Calgary alone, 76 permits for food trucks have been issued this year, up from 47 a couple of years ago — and the highest number since the city started offering them in 2011.
But Guardado says there’s still room for more.
“There’s definitely great growth potential,” he said.
“There’s some competition, just like in any other restaurant, but I wouldn’t say we’re stepping all over each other and fighting for it.”
Toronto has also seen a bump in food truck permits after the city shrunk the required buffer between trucks and restaurants from 50 metres to 30 metres, now more in line with Calgary’s 25-metre spacing.
“Last year really was a massive victory for us,” said Zane Caplansky, owner of Caplansky’s Deli and a Toronto food truck pioneer who’s been up and running since 2011.
With regulations that Caplansky says were “archaic and repressive” now gone, on-street permits have gone from 16 in 2014 to 56 this year.
But with parking spaces for big trucks still a problem, and crowds unreliable, Caplansky says it’s still a challenge to operate on the streets of Toronto. “It’s a tough business,” he said. “You can do very well, or you can lose a lot of money very quickly.”
Many truck owners, Caplansky says, are skipping the street permits and sticking to private events such as weddings and food truck festivals, where the customers are guaranteed. “There’s a much better business model around catering and special events,” he said.
The fact that the number of food trucks isn’t skyrocketing despite the loosening regulations has helped ease tensions with the restaurant industry, which has fought to keep buffers in place to respect the property taxes and investments restaurants have made.