[LINK] "Food Truck Revolution"

[rfmcdonald]

National Geographic's David Brindley describes the humble genesis of the food truck.

It’s 10 p.m. on a chilly Saturday in Los Angeles. Some 30 people, braving 48°F weather—hat-and-scarf cold for L.A.—line up along the sidewalk in front of a converted step van parked on the street. The windows slide open, and the phenomenon that is the Kogi BBQ food truck kicks into high gear.

Kogi BBQ has been drawing crowds, and accolades, since 2008, when two friends hatched a plan to fuse Korean barbecue with Mexican tacos and then hawk them from a truck on L.A.’s streets. Food trucks aren’t new to the city’s landscape. For decades they’ve offered cheap eats along roadsides and at construction sites across southern California. But they were often disparaged as “roach coaches.” So a Korean-taco truck was “a crazy idea,” writes Kogi BBQ founder Roy Choi in his memoir, L.A. Son.

That idea turned out to be “genius and ingenious,” says Barbara Fairchild, former editor of Bon Appétit and a longtime L.A. resident. The genius came in the kitchen.

Choi, 45, was born in Korea and immigrated with his family to L.A. when he was two. Drawing on flavors from his native cuisine—fused with Mexican dishes—and his top-notch chef training from the Culinary Institute of America, he concocted the deeply flavored caramelized short-rib barbecue and smoky-spicy salsas that top two crisp corn tortillas. The resulting tacos, what Choi calls “Los Angeles on a plate,” were an instant culinary classic. Through his simple yet revolutionary cooking, Choi unleashed the power of food to cross cultures and race.

“I picked up on the feeling that food was important,” he writes, “and not just a meal to fuel yourself to do something else.”

What put Kogi on the map, though, was its early adoption of social media to lure customers. Initially Kogi’s small crew didn’t have much luck selling to buzzed late-night bar-hoppers outside nightclubs on Sunset Boulevard. Then the team tapped into the emerging power of social media. Using Twitter—a mobile app that allows users to share short messages with friends and followers—Kogi constantly updated customers on its changing location. A groundswell of young, plugged-in urbanites appeared, tracking Kogi’s whereabouts. Within months Kogi was attracting hundreds of customers—and dishing out up to 400 pounds of meat—at several stops every day. Newsweek called it “America’s first viral eatery.” Kogi BBQ now has 132,000 followers, and its fleet has expanded to four roaming trucks and a truck stall at LAX airport.