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Texas Ranger Charles Goodnight
Goodnight new a good opportunity when he saw one: As a cattle rancher surrounded by hungry cowboys who worked and traveled grueling cattle drives, Goodnight invented the first mobile food business with the "chuckwagon" to feed the ravenous droves. -
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Spreading the Wealth with Food Currency
During these years, the popularity of the chuckwagon and general concept of serving food to people from wagons and mobile trolleys rapidly expanded throughout the country. -
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Street Vending Machines
Before vending machines gave people processed options as the press of a few buttons, business men, women and children had access to something novel and new: street vendors. These shops popped up and sold food to busy, hungry folks throughout the day. -
Big Cities Get Grub-To-Go
After the craze and sensation of serving food on the go burgeoned thanks to Charles Goodnight, big cities like New York, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia started to hop on the chuckwagon with food trolleys that dished out meals to people on the streets. -
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Expansion and Growth of Street Eats
The concept of easily accesible food to go had become such a way of life, that novelty trucks selling ice cream, hot waffles and other unique treats began to roam the streets of cities and rural communities. -
Local Groceries Make House Calls
Throughout the nation, local grocery store owners started delivering their goods from door to door at the request of specific orders from people. -
Good Humor Me
After the war, Good Humor became a sensation in American's daily lives. Kids, young and old clamoured around the notable ice cream trucks eager for a dose of the sweet treats sold of the mobile ice cream shops. -
Hot Diggity Dog
As food trucks and street vendors became a cheap form of good food, people started opening up shops whenever and wherever to generate a source of income. -
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Thank the Recession
When American's felt the pull from a lagging economy, the rise of food trucks were most prolific since people wanted to eat without dishing out serious dough. This generation of people were being economically savvy well before it was cool to be "eco-chic." -
Expensive Gas, Cheap Food
People guzzled down grub from mobile food carts and trucks in and effort to save money from the rising costs in gas and grocery store products. -
Bill Clinton Ruins Food Trucks...sort of.
Well actually, during Clinton's Presidential terms from 1992-2000, the economy in America was booming and people started to spend like mad, eating lavishly and forgetting about heading out to the street for a quick bite during their lunch hours. -
Gourmet-to-Go
Making lemons out of lemonade? In some ways yes, but really, crafty chefs with culinary backgrounds started owning and operating food trucks with some seriously high quality fare. These upscale eateries that began in the early 2000s have since influenced other chefs around the nation to establish their own food trucks serving some of thefood money can buy. -
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Bad economy, Rise of the Food Truck
When economic times got tough almost a decade ago, food trucks became popular once again with American people who were looking for ways to cut back on spending. -
Fame for Food Trucks
Food trucks are enormously popular right now in America with no signs of slowly down. TV shows like Eat St. and The Great Food Truck Race have established a following of people across the nation that are devoted to the delicious meals being served out of these trucks.
