In cities across the country, the once humble "food cart" is getting a trendy makeover. There are now dozens of food trucks competing for lunch and dinner business in neighborhoods everywhere, serving everything from lobster rolls to Korean tacos. The key to taking advantage of these affordable, convenient meals is knowing where they are. With city governments not always in favor of permitting food trucks to operate, mobile broadband services allow food carts to stay in touch with their customers wherever in the city they may need to be.
Food carts are generally associated with cheap, greasy cuisine. However, many restauranteurs are increasingly interested in selling their food through carts for a variety of reasons. One is that the restaurant business is very capital intensive. Many people do not realize that opening a restaurant is actually a huge investment, and one with a low probability of a high return, as many restaurants fail within a year or two. Food carts require a smaller initial investment and are therefore much less risky. Furthermore, owning a restaurant, according to many chefs, is actually quite unpleasant. There is a ton of overhead that goes into operating a restaurant, and it is not uncommon for people in the food industry to work 80 hours a week. With a food cart, restauranteurs can set more reasonable hours, put more time into cooking, and offer a less resource-intensive menu, all for a smaller up-front investment.
However, some city governments where food trucks are a relatively new phenomenon have not taken kindly to their increased presence on city streets. For example, Washington, DC is considering cracking down on the wave of food carts that has struck the city. The city cites health, safety, licensing, and traffic concerns, but there are rumors that the city may just be doing the business of the powerful restaurant industry, which is losing lunchtime business to its more nimble and flexible counterparts. However, it is questionable that food carts will ever make a huge dent in the restaurant industry due to the economies of scale that restaurants have. It is not uncommon to wait a half hour or more at particularly popular food carts, while the vast majority of restaurants are simply not that busy at lunchtime. While it remains to be seen how this and other similar battles will turn out, in the meantime wireless Internet service provides a great way to keep in touch with your favorite food cart.
The tool of choice for communication among many food carts is Twitter. With no clunky web page to update, Twitter allows food cart owners to communicate their location to all of their potential customers as easily as typing a few characters into a mobile phone. In fact, it seems that the food cart business was almost custom-made for Twitter. Using Twitter, food cart owners can also communicate changes to menus, such as whether they have run out of something on a particular day, so that customers can avoid disappointment and a fruitless wait in line.
One service great for keeping tabs on your favorite food carts is
clear wireless internet. This company has
WIRELESS INTERNET pricing that will work for you, whether you are on a caviar budget or food trucks are more your speed.
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