Pirate Chips owner Angela Nodwell is exploring new spots to dish up deep-fried eats – and she’s got little competition.
Nodwell’s Captain Ange’s Chips truck is the only mobile food vendor, next to an ice cream cart, licensed to sell within city limits so far this year.
Nanaimo politicians supported the first-ever food truck policy in March last year, allowing entrepreneurs the option to set up in select parks and city streets. A total of seven vendors were licensed in 2016.
There has not been a lot of buy-in, according to Nelda Richardson, city manager of development support services and business licensing, who attributes it to initial start-up and because Nanaimo is seasonal and the bad weather this year.
“There’s lots of locations, there’s lots of opportunity. We hear the prices are reasonable and really we haven’t had much feedback at all,” she said.
Nodwell got her truck in the fall and said it’s a “baby step” that the city let the food trucks be licensed and she’s surprised other people haven’t taken advantage of it, suggesting it could be the restrictive hours.
Food can be sold from trucks streetside from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., but Nodwell said the best time to be downtown is for the bar crowd. Her shop, Pirate Chips, survived for a decade between midnight and 3 a.m. at its former location on Commercial Street. If the city allowed trucks to be open later, she said maybe more people would take advantage of it.
Nodwell also finds that parking spaces marked for food trucks are often taken up by a car because parking is limited and its not reserved. It makes it difficult for her to plan to park near her old location when someone could be parked there.
Carol Struck, owner of Thunder’s Truck, got a permit from Nanaimo last year and thought it was a little expensive. A licence for private property, city parks and on-street spots costs $790 for food trucks and to be in parks only is $665, the city’s website shows.
Struck said a licence in North Cowichan costs her $100.
Nanaimo’s permit is also for a year, but Struck doesn’t want a whole year.
“I am not going to be there sitting at the beach in December and January and February. That’s just crazy,” she said, adding if the city had a six-month permit, people would probably jump on it.
Kim Smythe, president and CEO of the Greater Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce, isn’t surprised at the number of food truck and trailer operators getting licensed. Like any other business, it takes investment and commitment to the operating costs. He also said those who took out licences last year may have found the market didn’t exist and weren’t willing to be part of building one. Neither does he believe the locations were premium.
“I don’t think that we have the density of people in most cases in any one location that would make a food truck really successful,” said Smythe, who suggests alternative spots like the Northfield light industrial area and the visitor centre off Nanaimo Parkway.
A review of the policy is anticipated, but Richardson said it hasn’t been put on the books yet.
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