Taste Of Chicago A Bad Deal For Food Trucks?

By Anthony Todd in Food on Apr 30, 2013 5:40PM

We reported a few weeks back that the 2013 edition of Taste of Chicago would now include food trucks. Awesome, right? Now you can get your favorite mobile cupcakes and sandwiches right alongside your turkey legs and Italian ice. Maybe not so much — looks like food trucks might be getting overcharged for the privilege.

Food Truck Freak took a look at the vendor applications for the Taste and noticed an interesting little tidbit. Restaurants will be charged at 20 percent commission for the privilege of appearing, but food trucks will be charged 25 percent. Everything else is approximately the same.

The city does the math for us on the form. Assuming $9,000 in sales, a food truck owner would come away with $6,041 and a restaurant stand owner would come away with $6,444. This seems an odd bit of discrimination. Trying to get a little extra money to stop the taste from losing money?

FTF talked to an unhappy truck owner.

One food truck owner told us that there are a lot more additional costs on their end to participate and they’d be lucky to break even if they took the risk of being a Taste of Chicago vendor, and even luckier to earn a few hundred bucks for all their efforts.

We'll be interested to hear the city's explanation, if and when they release one — they haven't responded yet to requests for comment.

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