It probably wouldn’t be a stretch to assume Boise’s food truck scene can trace its roots to hotdog carts that catered to day time professionals and night time partiers.

Boise followed a national trend and hotdog carts morphed into food trucks offering everything from traditional fair food to gourmet cuisine. For food trucks in downtown Boise, however, doing business is extremely difficult due to city regulations.

Boise Municipal Code bans food trucks from public streets in the Business Improvement District (BID). The BID includes the area of 5th to 13th and State to Myrtle. In other words, food trucks can’t be in the one area in Boise where pedestrian traffic is heaviest. Because of these types of regulations, the food truck rally, and now the Idaho Food Festival, was born.

Food trucks can be in the BID if they have permission to be on private property. The Idaho Food Festival secured a parking lot at 6th and Main with room enough for all your favorite food trucks plus a variety of craft beer vendors, and of course, live music.

Hopefully the City of Boise and food truck owners can come together and come up with a set of rules that will help grow our local economy and help entrepreneurs grow. Until then, foodies and their favorite food trucks can rally on private property.

 

 

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