At first, the Tempest Bar’s Tony Cooney welcomed Off The Grid, a convergence of five to six food trucks that parked several feet away from his Natoma Street restaurant every Wednesday.
“Our lunch crowd was down by about 75 percent,” he said. “But it was cool. They were bringing people to the area and it was good for the community.”
But when Off The Grid’s food trucks began coming on Fridays, too, Cooney’s business plummeted to the point of serious concern.
Like Cooney, a groundswell of San Francisco merchants, property managers and restaurant owners say the rise of the food truck phenomena is eating into their businesses and they want a fairer playing field.