The appearance of outdoor food carts throughout the city is one of the spring rituals in D.C. that goes hand in hand with GAAP weekends and cherry blossoms. However, unlike Chicago or New York City, where two or three corporations monopolize the mobile food franchises, such food distribution centers here in the District are free-lance ventures. Each D.C. kiosk is, by law, its own sole proprietorship. Though they may all be virtually indistinguishable from each other, most of the vendors are not in cahoots and have never even met despite working side-by-side. This does not stop them from hating each other, and in this bastion of capitalism, social Darwinism permeates every level of commerce.
A quick poll showed local food cart owners to be a cross section of the world’s population. Of those who would answer, two were from China, one from Ethiopia, two from Western Europe and one from Laos. According to one, if a newcomer steals the location someone else has had for years, the others will try to shut him out of the business by arriving at dawn to snag the spot.
Many of these vendors have a language barrier, but sometimes it can be an act. One of them gaped at me in confusion when I asked her name, though I heard her complaining about her husband’s growing waistline in perfect American English after walking past a second time. I can’t say I blame them.
“No! Spongebob has blue eyes,” a child angrily protested, questioning the authenticity of a poster-plastered cart. The owner did not dignify this complaint with a response, but instead squinted her eyes in the glare of the sun.
“College students always want chocolate. Anything chocolate, except when they are big boys with their girls. Then they pay for their girls and get nothing at all,” one vendor caustically remarked before snatching away my wrinkled, unimpressive wad of dollar bills and handing me my fudge ice cream bar. By the end of my trek, I had accumulated a liter of Diet Dr. Pepper, a single serving of trail mix, a crunchy Klondike bar, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sorbet head skewered on a popsicle stick and malted milk balls. When I told one vendor that I was lactose intolerant, she calmly assured me that I wasn’t fat and didn’t need to worry. The guilt eventually got to me.
I asked if they ever scoped out the competition’s wares or, worse, if they would ever willingly purchase a product from a competitor. Of the three who answered my question, two said that they would always give their money to a seasoned veteran.
“They are all annoying,” said Sandy, one of the many vendors crowded around the entrance to the L’Enfant Plaza metro station. “I avoid the mall after hours anyway. I’ve had enough.”
Personal expression is also welcome in cart-based enterprises. A little Buddha adornment can serve as both a testament to one’s spirituality and as an aesthetic partition between the Hershey’s and Nestle products.
Washington D.C. boasts a host of vendors from all over the globe, serving a limited selection of food at a small profit to residents and tourists alike. Somewhere in there the American dream is still alive. At most carts it can be found just left of the Cowabunga Ninja Pops.
