Truckin'

Swork Owner Goes After Food Trucks, Happy Endings, and Eagle Rock’s City Council

Tricia Neale Vuagniaux, the owner of Eagle Rock’s ten-year-old Swork cafe, is super-pissed about food trucks hurting her profits and leaving their garbage behind (that’s so 2010!). In Eagle Rock Patch today, the owner details her frustration at the new breed of truckers, and lumps in “massage parlors” and pot shops while she’s at it. What does the owner have to say?

Vuagniaux writes, “For one thing, I know that the food truck that parks in front of Trader Joe’s affects the sales of CaCao Mexicatessen. Sadly, there’s not much the restaurant can do about it—and no one has the courage to speak up for it.” Ouch! We hardly felt for the chain restaurants suffering not so silently in Mid-Wilshire, but this comes directly from the sort of small indie businesses we like to support.

Angered at the shaved ice detritus and loose sheets of Zig Zags piling up in her yard, the author asks, “Is this what it’s coming down to? Cities invaded by food trucks? Date night on sidewalks? This trend will grow, expand, and in its wake leave nothing but broken business behind. Is this what Eagle Rock wants? More empty retail spaces, with “For Lease” and “For Rent” signs dotting the boulevard?”

Regardless of her blatant stereotyping of gang-bangers and “hoodlums” and such (not sure why she has to call out the Armenian sets), Neale is clearly speaking from a place of great frustration in seeing her sales slip, her peers get hurt, and her yard trashed. Neale looks to be urging a boycott of the food truck scene in Eagle Rock and is calling out her councilmembers for being spineless.

She concludes,”Pasadena, Burbank and Glendale would never allow what we do.” Our question to eagle Rock residents? Do you want to be more like Burbank and Pasadena or keep the quasi-legal pot, happy endings, and street food? Do any of you feel “invaded” by food trucks? Would anyone like them to stay?

We’d love to hear your thoughts in our comments.

Food Trucks, Pot Shops Hurt Eagle Rock [Eagle Rock Patch]

Swork Owner Goes After Food Trucks, Happy Endings, and Eagle Rock’s City Council