Roswell Food Truck Park Returning

Food trucks are crazy popular y'all. TV shows, competitions, parks. They are all over the place. They are starting to migrate out from urban areas and into the suburbs, where they are finding a willing audience. Alpharetta has it's very successful Food Truck Alley on Thursday nights (starts April 17th this year) and last spring Roswell jumped in the mix with it's own Roswell River Food Truck Weekends at Don White Park. Spearheaded by The Food Movement, a company that owns multiple trucks in metro Atlanta, the Roswell Food truck park started off strong last year, before trailing off.

Recently, I had a chance to talk to Greg Gordon, the Executive Chef of The Food Movement about Roswell's food truck park via email. I found the conversation be enlightening about the park. According to Greg, trucks affiliated with The Food Movement have priority in scheduling. Other trucks are welcome to be scheduled, but only after their trucks are scheduled. The hope is that more trucks will be able to participate this year if the park grows in popularity. Sales are critical, as a truck needs to make at least $500 to break even.

The park usage impacts the trucks success. Greg told me that sales dropped off considerably for the trucks after Shoot the Hooch stopped renting tubes. They are hoping for more sales this year as Shoot the Hooch will be renting bikes at the park this year as well.

This year the park begins this weekend, April 5, and is planned to end around Labor Day. Hours are more limited this year, to 11am-2pm, to take advantage of lunchtime crowds.

As I've said before, I'm a fan of the food truck park. East Roswell doesn't have as many restaurants as the historic district and I like being able to walk to lunch. Don White park is a great venue for something like this and I'd like to see this venture succeed. Hopefully, they will be able to learn from last year and become a big, annual event.




Like my poorly lit iPhone pictures? I'm on Flickr now!  And you can like me on Facebook! You can read my articles about last year's food truck park here.