This week, Mission Street Food enters a cocoon for a period of hibernation. Next week, it will emerge as a beautiful new butterfly. According to the official blog:
We’re announcing a new format for Mission Street Food: each week, we’ll feature a local guest chef/cook, who will offer his or her own dishes in addition to our regular menu.
To make this change possible, we’ll be moving from the truck into an actual restaurant. We’ve been talking with some local restaurants about sharing space, and we’ll announce the details in a few days. We’ll be closed this week for planning and will re-open somewhere in the Mission on November 6.
Link. This sounds great, but will the sandwiches be as fun to eat sitting at a table, indoors? Will it still be street food?
Oh, man, I was looking forward to the rain = shorter lines, I am waterproof.
Mixed feelings on this one. Restaurant street, and the lines to get inside will be interesting.
Cool on an indie chef movement though. Man cannot live on king trumpet alone.
[...] Mission Mission raises the question: “This sounds great, but will the sandwiches be as fun to eat sitting at a table, indoors? Will it still be street food?” [...]
Whoops, WP ate “less than-greater than”. “restaurant ≠ street”.
disappointing
probably an economic decision. more stable physical plant & diverse offering will (hopefully) enable these guys to make more $$. i am guessing.
i think the romance of the cart was super, but even at $8 / sandwich or whatever they were charging…it’s a fucking hard task to make any $ selling food after labor is figured in. almost impossible.
could be a permit thing too. or figuring the cart stops making any $ when it starts raining.
maybe they move into a physical spot this winter, hunker down and solidify the model, then next spring they push 2 or 3 carts out into the hood, PLUS the physical space. that would be a cool strategy. i am making this up…
it will be interesting to see how it goes… a lot of the attraction was “cool factor”. wil it be as cool in a restaurant? it certainly wont be “street food”.
y’all loved em as a cart, waiting 45 minutes for a sandwich on a paper plate….don’t fade away because things change. these guys are in business…it’s not an art project.
Anyone who really believes that this fru-fru fare is “street food” has been ensconced in the San Francisco Bubble for way too long. I know that it’s served to you “on the street” and all, but real street food does not include things like cilantro aioli, charred scallion sour cream, or mint-lime-horseradish dressing. It all sounds delicious, but it’s about as authentic street food as Taco Bell is authentic Mexican… and no, I’m not making a quality comparison, so save the rabid flames.
All is not lost, however, my benevolent neighbors. If you too would like to experience street food, simply turn your body about 90 degrees from the Mission Street Food truck and walk a block or two. You will find a friendly person, probably of Mexican descent, grilling up some delicious bacon wrapped hot dogs. You’ll notice that many of their customers look a lot like all the people who lived in our neighborhood for years and years before we dropped in with all our money.com.
I’m not saying that what Mission Street Food serves is not good. Quite the contrary, it sounds delicious, and I plan on stopping by some Thursday when I’m not already toting a delicious Farolito’s Super Shrimp Burrito home. I’m just saying that the hype over “finally” having “street food” in San Francisco because of them is a load of Jicama, whatever that is.
Who said anything about “finally”?
Sorry, I was lumping the buzz from outside of Mission Mission in to my little rant. For the last couple of weeks it seems like conversation in the breakroom at work and on various SF blogs is all about Mission Street Food and how food being served through a taco truck window is kind of like the second coming of Christ. I don’t recall where or from whom, but I’ve most certainly heard or read one or two people expressing sentiment along the lines of “thank goodness we finally have some real street food in this town” with regard to the truck.
Gotcha. And agreed. Anybody saying anything along the lines of that is kind of a goober.
I like a couple things about Mission Street Food: First, why shouldn’t street food include things like cilantro aioli!? Cilantro aioli is fucking good! Also, I know some people say it’s overpriced, but really it’s nice to be able to eat Bar Tartine-caliber cuisine for $10 or $15. And that the success of this effort might encourage others to undertake similar experiments is definitely a good thing. Can’t argue with the spurring of innovation. Finally, and granted, I’m newer to the neighborhood than some, but I’ve been eating bacon-wrapped hot dogs for about half a decade, so it’s nice to have something new to choose from.
$3 bacon hot dogs cooked by a person from El Salvador (the folks at 19th are anyways) can peacefully and symbiotically co-exist with $15 brownies & brie served by SF hipsters.
it’s the Mission.
this juxtaposition is fucking 15 years old by now.
decrying it at this point is like lamenting the demise of the steam engine. pointless.
(that said, i can’t stand to wait in line, so i’m not commenting on the quality of MSF fare. never had it. the bacon hot dogs, however, are awesome.)
This sucks! it’s not gonna be street food anymore. I ate there only once but it was amazing and cheap! Sure there are $3 hotdogs wrapped in bacon which are good when drunk (and don’t mind the hotdogs sitting there cooking for 3 hours) but Mission street food was only $4-$5 not $15 brownies. zinzin you can’t comment on anything until you’ve actually waited in line and tried it.
Does this mean no more brown bagging it? Weak.
hey i wasn’t criticizing it. i think it’s awesome. sorry if i mis-quoted the price. i wasn’t trying to say it was too costly. i think it’s WORTH that if it’s good.
i just personally cant wait in a 45 minute line. for anything. i’ve got …a condition.
but if it’s awesome from a truck, it’ll be awesome in a building, right? he BEST PART can’t be waiting in line on mission street, can it?
my guess is these guys have something clever up their sleeve. there’s got to be a reason WHY they’re abandoning the truck.
my bets are still on the “move to a building now, relaunch the trucks later” hypothesis.
also, i know of AT LEAST 2 other folks who are planing hipster street food trucks, so there will be plenty of lines to wait in by the spring i am guessing.
I say we all save the negative attitude until we actually get to partake in this experiment
The line was fun. I met lots of interesting people while waiting, and Karen is cool.
Spoke with MSF — the cops had no issues with their permits. I think they just wanted a friendlier corner. Good food should be happy food.
The lines were getting kind of nuts though. The solution is clearly more trucks. I think every Mission restaurant should be legally obligated to have a food truck serving at least three dishes and a desert. zinzin, when you run for Sup, can you push that through?
Funny comment over on my blog from a FOJ (Friend of James):
‘If you like them so much invite them to set up in front of your house and you clean after them’
Hell ja — I’d let MSF set up in front of my house in a second! MSF was cleaning up after they were done and washing down the sidewalk, leaving it cleaner than they found it. I’d even let them use my garden hose, and I could set up a keg in my garage. Now THAT would be good public use of my subsidized driveway space.
There is nothing like coming home after a day out to the smell
of something cooking and knowing your dinner is almost ready.
Here are some of the things that recipes don’t tell you:.
When they returned to work they sliced up the meat and served it to their customers.