As of the spring of 2024 we have decided to retire the DonerMen Food Truck. It’s been a wonderful experience, with so many loyal followers keeping us going through these past 11 years. We truly appreciate your support. Heck, you named us Chicago Reader’s Food Truck of the Year the past four years in a row! So why stop now? Well for starters, the truck isn’t getting any younger, for that matter neither are we. Running a food truck in Chicago is always a battle with the City, if you want to know the long winded version I pinned it below. But sometimes, really, it’s just the right time.
Don’t fret, we aren’t abandoning you. DMen Tap continues to marinate and stack the meat spits with the same recipes and care as we did on the truck. That delicious sweet, tangy DMen Curry Sauce is still going strong in the kitchen at DMen. There are things we can do there that we could never pull off with the truck: House-made seitan, shiitake gravy, fermented hot sauces, amazing specials and so much we could never do on the food truck. We’re sorry we can’t bring the truck out to you anymore, but we have upgraded our catering at DMen to accommodate your group. Please reach out,
We will also be dipping our feet into being a booth vendor at street fests this summer. Look for us along side the good folks at Black Dog Gelato, Ćevapčići Chicago, Bad Johnny’s Pizza and Beat Kitchen. We will still also be at the downtown Chicago Christkindlemarket at Daley Plaza every year they will have us.
Thanks to all the food trucks that we’ve shared this journey with. Remember, we’ll always have extra napkins and forks for you, just like you always did for us. Thanks, to Yum Dum, Fat Shallot, Salsa Truck, Happy Lobster, Chicago Lunchbox, A Sweets Girl, Ms. Tittles Cupcakes, Beaver’s Donuts. and so many more.
Why food trucks are closing in Chicago?
Since The Salsa Truck opened as Chicago’s first cook-on-board food truck in February of 2013, the people of Chicago have been very supportive of food trucks. Unfortunately, Downtown Alderman Brendan Reilly and Alderman Tom Tunney(owner of the north side Ann Sather restaurants) were concerned that food trucks would be bad for business. Before the resolution was approved in 2012 they altered it. What they added crippled the burgeoning Chicago food truck scene.
Trucks are required to park 200 feet from and food establishment, be it a coffee shop, convenience store or restaurant To insure this they are GPS tracked. They are also restricted from serving for longer than two hours (4 as of 2022) before moving locations. Prepping out of a licensed restaurant was not allowed unless it was approved as a ‘commissary’, a difficult process accomplished by only one existing restaurant. This forced added expense on truck owners to pay monthly for a commercial kitchen, even in winter months when running a food truck is not feasible
The alderman set aside designated ‘food truck zones’, of the 32 they established, only 3 were viable. Many were in low street trafficked areas or on the wrong side of the street, forcing food trucks to open their serving windows into lanes of traffic to use them. Combined with the 200’ rule there are only 7 legal parking spaces for food trucks in the Chicago’s downtown loop. And you know parking in the loop isn’t all that easy in a 24’ truck.
Food truck owners met with city officials, cordially, to work things out. Most of the city officials wanted what we and you wanted, more food trucks. Unfortunately the original ordinance had teeth. Food trucks took the City of Chicago to court, escalating to the Illinois Supreme Court, led by Cupcakes for Courage’s Laura Pekarik and the Institute for Justice. Cupcakes for Courage began as a small effort to raise money to help cover medical costs of Laura’s sister Kathryn battled non-Hodgkin’s T-cell lymphoma. But the popularity of their baked goods inspired the sisters to grow their operation into a food truck enterprise, devoting a portion of their earnings to charities dedicated to cancer research. Cupcakes for Courage.. Unfortunately the Il Supreme Cournt ruled in favor of the City in 2019. Honestly, if the pandemic hadn’t hit in 2020, we might not have stayed on this long.
In that crazy summer of 2020 food trucks did all they could to help. Even though they would have been better monetarily off at home on unemployment, they forged on, feeding hospitals staffs and neighborhood clean up crews. We are proud to have been part of the Community Kitchen program that fed many food insecure Chicagoans these last few years. Thanks to the good folks at Lumpen, Co-Prosperity Sphere, Maria’s Packaged Goods, Kimski’s and Parachute for including us.
Now, with more empty offices downtown that ever, it is even less feasible to be a Chicago food truck. So if you are downtown and wonder where the food trucks went, now you know. There aren’t very many food trucks because a few Aldermen didn’t want food trucks. If you visit D.C., Portland, Austin, L.A,, Minneapolis or NYC you will see food trucks. A lot of food trucks. It isn’t because those cities have more motivated entrepreneurs with a dream. It is because they don’t try to choke the life out of their food trucks like we do in Chicago.