Salmonella Sam

Almost every morning on my bike ride up Franklin Blvd. there's a taco truck parked off the road just past 47th Avenue, across from the Campbell's Soup plant. If you ever eat from roach coaches then you'd know what a 5-speed is. They are awesome.

But...the problem I have with this one is that while it is parked off the sidewalk and curb, parked in about a 20 foot space between a fence and the street, its patrons park in the bike lane right on the fucking street, and it turns out that I am almost always faced with having to ride in the traffic lane with traffic coming off the traffic signal. And the signs posted all around couldn't be any clearer:

This is about one of 7 "choke points" on my bike ride where I never feel comfortable. Every morning I scan the intersection looking for police to point out the obvious infractions but I never seem to come across a cruiser at that intersection. This mobile truck can be seen on Google Maps; it happened to be there at the time of the scan along with three cars, one of which is parked illegally on the road, forcing me into the lane.

Again, it isn't the gut truck...it's the patrons. They refuse to walk the 60 extra feet to legally park on 45th. Each of these overweight Americans roll up to the Trick Truck (the Trichinosis truck) driven by Salmonella Sam, and open their doors and roll themselves out, forcing me right into the traffic lane.

Now here's an interesting sidebar. The City of Sacramento issued an ordinance that will effectively ban mobile catering trucks from occupying any given spot for more than 30 minutes. Apparently, this ordinance is the death knell for many mobile trucks in the city, because quite a few of them are parked semi-permanently. Nine trucks were grandfathered but only until 2012.

Trick trucks, in my opinion, are rather seedy looking affairs, but in the context of food as a culture they represent something that's completely lacking in our supermarkets, in our chained restaurants...these treat food as a commodity, without any flair in preparation, with no culture. When I go to Raley Field and watch a River Cat's baseball game, I can only eat the same hot dogs, the same licorice ropes, the same salted pretzels with mustard that I'd find at a King's basketball game, or an Oakland Raider game, or even a high school wrestling match. A trick truck at the Folsom auction might sell a carne asada torta that I'd never, never! find anywhere else in such a public venue, and the loss of variety is just one more thing we choose to lose when we ordinate trick trucks out of existence for the sake of ensuring repeatable property and sales taxes from brick and mortar restaurants.

Soon, the only 5-speed you can get will be an imported Fiat.