Effort To Bring Food Truck Service To Jamestown Ramping Up

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JAMESTOWN – A program allowing food truck services in Jamestown is ramping up.

Over the past few months, city leaders have been working to layout rules for mobile food vendors to follow, and now, are looking for mobile kitchens to try out the newly launched program.

“I don’t remember who brought it up first, but it really came to the surface with the pandemic and some of our small businesses wanting to diversify by having outdoor options,” says Crystal Surdyk, Jamestown’s Director of Development. “The pandemic really accelerated the need for us to have some kind of policy.”

Surdyk and other city officials have held public input meetings and conducted surveys generating feedback about permitting mobile food vendors. Results, Surdyk says, have been mixed.

“We have found that people are generally supportive of food trucks.They see them as a benefit to the community. However, we have heard other concerns from people that there may be competition in a time where we have a pandemic and businesses are struggling,” said Surdyk. “The flip side is that food trucks can be a draw and attract more people to downtown. We want to make sure that we hear all concerns and do additional research and look at what other communities have done in terms of implementing food trucks.”

Over the next couple of weeks, Surdyk and her team will be going through the information gathered and present their findings to Jamestown lawmakers.

“We would like to present to the council with the data that we’ve received and a brief summary of what we’ve heard so far,” furthered Surdyk. “We’ll announce at that time that we are opening up the citizen advisory committee.”

Permits cost $150 for in city operators and $300 for out of city operators.

Surdyk is also looking to establish three city organized food truck rodeos and says the formula would be simple.

“The way it works is that we get a bunch of food trucks together where people can safely grab food from each one exercising the proper safety protocols,” said Surdyk.