Johnson runs Food Truck Fiesta, a real-time automated tracker of food trucks in downtown Washington. Johnson’s free website features food truck-related news. Why are food trucks such a hit in D.C.?
I firmly believe that there’s a lack of variety of food options downtown. There are tons of office workers, and it’s a pain in the butt to pack your lunch every day. Food trucks are filling in that void of variety for food. They’re not going for the potato chips and hot dogs offerings, either. There are real chefs on these trucks. It’s like a food court outside the office building. Every day there’s different restaurants. It’s exciting to not know what next day’s lunch will be.
Why did you start tracking these trucks?
Some other people had been offering a once-a-month manual mash-up of truck locations, and it was pretty easy to do back then because there were only five food trucks in existence in D.C. I thought maybe we could do that every day, and that’s where my inspiration came from.
How did you get interested in food trucks?
I work downtown and that was exciting to me. I was just one of the crowd. I was naturally interested in food trucks and I’m a software engineer, [so] I put some of my skills to use in that.
What is the future of D.C. food trucks?
When all the parking spaces get filled up around Franklin Square, trucks are going to start spreading out more and they’re going to explore new places. They’re going to find there’s plenty of other niches places in D.C., like in suburbia where there are people who lack food options as well. The greatest place I see is the suburban areas of Maryland and Virginia.
Amy Myers
