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It is an invitation to develop Columbus’ first street food hub. For this idea, we’ve given it a working title: Dinin’ Hall. Let us explain what it is.
The concept of Dinin’ Hall came from a simple desire to create a better dining experience for street food. Like many of you, we attended events and festivals and ate many times at food carts and trucks last year. We brought along our little ones for we wanted to expose them to new foods (some of you might know how hard it is to convince kids there are many yummy food out there other than mac n cheese.) It turns out that my kids loved the food as much as we did. Even my son, a picky eater, gave thumbs-up and kept asking for more from his older sister. But wait! I forgot to tell you something: before we had our first bites, we had waited in line at the truck for half an hour to make the order, another half hour to get the food, and ended up eating at the sidewalk, squatting and holding our food dripping.
There must be better ways to enjoy street food, we thought.
Dinin’ Hall, street food brought indoors
Dinin’ Hall can provide possible solutions. Think of it as a food court like in a mall with a centralized dining area. Think of it as a cafe with its kitchen outside. Think of it as an eatery where you can always find street food and sit down to enjoy, regardless of weather. Dinin’ Hall can become Columbus’ first street food hub.
Street food hubs in other cities
One of Portland’s neighborhood food cart pods.
In many cities, similar ideas have been developed and materialized. In Portland, Oregon, arguably the number 1 destination of the world’s best street food, for example, there are places in its downtown and other neighborhoods where food carts congregate as groups in open areas. Food cart pods, as they are called, open daily and provide amenities such as picnic tables covered with umbrellas, portable bathrooms, electricity hook-ups, ATM machines, etc. They have become popular places where locals like to visit and travelers like to seek out for an authentic vibe of the city.
Vision for the food truck trailer park in Lower Greenville.
Comparable settings for food trucks can be found in Austin, Texas, and they are generally known as food truck parks. One of them that will open soon is located in Lower Greenville; it will feature six trailers of different cuisines. Each trailer pays rent for its parking space and they station at the park permanently. The park offers customers access to outdoor seating, a common bathroom, a playground, a dog park, and a neon sign art park. This arrangement reminds us of a permanent version of the Columbus Commons Lunch on the Lawn every Wednesday in the past summer.
Columbus First Street Food Hub
Dinin’ Hall features a centralized dining area and ordering system.
So, what can Dinin’ Hall bring to Columbus’ booming street food scene? Primarily, it is an indoor café that serves street food all day. It is about creating a new dining experience of street food. At Dinin’ Hall, menu changes daily, depending on the participating vendors— a combination of three trucks and carts can make a good start. With vendors rotating regularly, you can always find something new to try each time you visit. In addition to the street food variety, Dinin’ Hall is also about a streamline ordering system and transaction processes. When entering Dinin’ Hall, you approach the cash wrap to make order and buy drinks. All payments are processed electronically through Square. After making orders, you can find seating and pick out a complimentary magazine to read while you wait. Momentarily, servers will bring the freshly made food right to you from your favorite vendors. With communal tables and benches as a focal point, Dinin’ Hall aims for an urban dining experience. It is where street food brings people together, building foodie and creative communities.
A Win-Win for Food Vendors and Landlords
From a business perspective, Dinin’ Hall presents opportunities for food trucks and carts who want to maintain mobility and flexibility. Vendors can try Dinin’ Hall’s location, starting with once a week to see if it works out before making longer-term commitment. This way, these vendors are not locked in leases like those at the Austin trailer food park situation mentioned above. While this is favorable to street food vendors, what about the landlords?
Ideal locations for Dinin’ Hall are vacant storefronts that come with sizable parking lots. Since vacancies are not generating revenues, an innovative establishment like Dinin’ Hall can provide the landlord an income stream as well as publicity of the property.
Other positive impacts
Dinin’ Hall can bring affordable food to underserved neighborhoods where residents and workers have no walkable access to cafes and restaurants. Filling in this niche, Dinin’ Hall can help revitalize some struggling areas. Not only does it help feed the locals, it also attracts people from outside, bringing positive energy to the neighborhood and benefit communities.
If Dinin’ Hall can happen in Columbus, which neighborhoods would you like to see it in?
Dinin’ Hall mock-up seen at OSU Urban Arts Space
Dinin’ Hall is one of the conceptual ideas featured in the current exhibition Good Design in Hard Times at OSU Urban Arts Space located 50 W. Town St. downtown. It is on view through February 4, 2012. For more information visit uas.osu.edu.
In a lot of cases, just eating in your car (think drive-in) would be doable in inclement weather.
Simplify this idea and it will work. No need for a waitstaff, the magazines and waitstaff are too much in my opinion. It creates an added pressure to tip these workers as well and it overcomplicates the simple idea of a food truck. A covered area with table, seats, and trashcans is all thats needed. Charge the trucks a fee for supplying their customers with seating and have a small staff in charge of keeping the area clean.
In terms of look, the design feels more Fleur than food truck.
It’s not approachable and lacks a community feel.
Further, as others have pointed out, the design is not adaptable and mobile.
This should be a set up that can be taken anywhere and be set up in 15 minutes.
Regardless, the design doesn’t seem like the real problem, which is why I’m surprised by the focus on aesthetics and an untried ordering processes, which complicates the experience and would make it feel like a corporate cafeteria given the proposed aesthetic.
It’s unclear what problem this is solving other than having an indoor space during bad weather.
Why not lower the barrier to entry to become a food truck vendor? The problems seem to be more with licensing and the startup costs.
It’s expensive to get into this business for most people.
Make it dead simple for anyone with a passion for making food and serving it to the public to become the next Jeni’s or Pattycake and capitalize on the existing independent food culture in the city.
Pretty tables and chairs won’t accomplish that.
Portland as the #1 destination for the world’s best street food? I take it that you’ve never been to Gurney Drive for rojak.
The Food courts full of hawker stands all over southeast Asia have this figured out. Simple plastic furniture. Open-air dining. Different colored trays for each vendor. Enough variety of vendors that at least one will appeal to someone in your party. Permanent enough that you can go there on autopilot (and without consulting The Internets to find out where it’s hidden today). We need that here. And within walking distance of OSU.
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Moo!
A related, pro-foodcart thought is to get them to attend to neighborhood festivals (away from downtown). The vendors at those are pretty lousy, greasy, and over-priced. It’d be great to see 4-5 food trucks up in Worthington or Westerville, for example, when there are events downtown. It’d also expose additional audience to the trucks that maybe don’t make it to their regular routes.
Thank you for all the constructive comments. Obviously as a new idea, it will not be perfect and nobody know if it will work or not until we actually do it and test it out and fine tune it along the way if it is to be successful. We are mindful that this is a new idea that is unproven so we are working with people who are in the food truck business and food business in general to make sure that it is a sensible thing to do. The final approach and operation may change but the key idea really is to improve the street food experience and take it to the next level, just like the many new gourmet food trucks that started out last year and how they add to the the more traditional taco trucks scene. Many ideas and things started out sounding and seeming dumb (including the personal computer I am using to type this), while most of them stay that way and never go anywhere, some do and it can make a difference. But you will never know if you don’t try.
I agree with those advocating “keep it simple.” Agree that the Dinin’ Hall concept is basically a food court – YUCK! If people want their dining experience to feel like a food court, they can go to a food court! I came here from Philly where there’s a decent street food scene concentrated in the university areas (where there are benches and planters to sit on) and downtown (where the seating is more hit or miss). As for winter, well, you wear gloves and wash ‘em when the grease from your cheesesteak makes them stand up on their own. And really, how many winter days do we get any more where the cold is really a factor??
Any common grounds? Yes!
Regular places for food trucks and carts (and their customers) to congregate, to socalize.
Seating and weather-proof space.
Rotating food trucks and carts.
Serving areas that do not have walkable eateries.
I am not sure people need or are suggesting a ‘weather proof’ space. I would assume that people and trucks would just stay home on really bad days. A very simple open canopy might be nice.
i suppose i am in the minority of liking the designs posted. i am however wondering if there is a bit of a hybrid between the modern aesthetic and the idea of keeping it simple. Go with all bench seating instead of the high tops and stools. Instead of going with the stark white, just go with plain plywood tables that would keep the clean lines but also pay homage to simple wooden picnic tables. Perhaps design them on wheels to be reconfigured easily, and/or collapsible so they could be moved to other venues as needed. I think there are several ways that apparently contrasting ideas can be merged.
Your opinion is coming from someone that doesn’t even own a food truck. So by your own logic doesn’t that negate anything you have to say on this topic? ;)
In being a professional musician in this city I constantly think of ways to gather people where they are not necessarily there to see music but for another reason and then the addition of music makes it that much better. A food truck “gathering” of sorts has been an idea brewing in my head for a while. Something regular on a Thursday night or in the day near offices for a lunch break where three different trucks park outside a big parking lot and a small stage is set up for musicians. This food hub is a GREAT idea and (like the picture from Portland) I think music would be a great addition to this idea. Of course there must be funding for the musicians. I also like the idea of the neon art sign art park. Bringing different disciplines together and a multi faceted (but not overly complicated) space would be awesome. Art, food, music. GO!
Feel free to contact me if you want to talk more about this, is the goal for someone to pick this idea up or is it already being done?
So much great feedback.
As a foodtruck owner..first and foremost it’s fantastic how quickly we have been embraced by the citizens of Central Ohio, I am sincerely thankful and touched.
After personally experiencing the “movement” begin in LA and traveling to Austin, Portland etc for research, there are so many exciting possibilities. All of which I see being beneficial to our city’s landscape if executed properly.
Thank you Tim and Eliza for your interest in streetfood and getting a dialog started.