City In Austin
posted by on September 16 at 14:30 PM
File this one under things you won’t find in Seattle: Flip Happy Crepes, a creperie operated out of a repurposed Airstream trailer in an shady overgrown lot in South Austin. The dining area consists of a few picnic tables, some plastic folding tables, and a children’s school desk, all scattered under a modest plastic awning. The crepes (most of them savory—yay!) are incredible (mine had pulled pork, Gruyere, and caramelized onions) but the setting is the real draw: Informal, charmingly ramshackle, and cool despite the 90-degree weather thanks to the awning and a couple of massive old live oak trees. When I visited, a bunch of people seemed to have been there for quite a while, as evidenced by the empty bottles of Red Stripe that were piling up on their table.
This is exactly the sort of business model that would work in Seattle—if it was allowed here. As I’ve reported before, however, it’s nearly impossible to open a street restaurant in Seattle, thanks to convoluted regulations that require all mobile food businesses to either limit themselves to “non-potentially hazardous” foods (pretzels, popcorn, lemonade) or be equipped with a large, three-compartment sink with hot and cold running water, on-site refrigeration, and a separate, on-site hand-washing sink. If you can pay for all that, you still have to pay licensing fees and get written permission to set up shop from nearby businesses. Imagine trying to start up a similar business—say, a sandwich shop on wheels—behind a business district in Ravenna, or Wallingford, or even Columbia City. One business protests, and you’re looking for a new location. And that’s assuming you don’t serve want to serve alcohol—forget about letting people bring it themselves. (That’s illegal in Seattle—unlike Texas, where bringing your beer with you to the taco stand is not considered a threat to public safety.)
I’ve written before about how hard it is to get city approval for a permit to sell alcohol outdoors; even a tiny pizza shop in West Seattle called Slices couldn’t get city approval to sell beer and wine on its outdoor patio, because the city (read: Mayor Greg Nickels and City Attorney Tom Carr) believed people would pass beers to underage kids over the fence between Slices and the sidewalk. (A: What a fucking stupid theory; B: Heaven forfend that a 20-year-old should get his hands on alcohol!) Which is really too bad: It shouldn’t be so hard for people to open patios where people can eat and drink outside. They’re all over the place in Austin—I’m writing from, and drinking at, one now, corrupting the underage college kids sitting right next to me!—and they could be in Seattle, if our state and city leaders would get their heads out of their asses and realize there are more pressing problems than the availability of alcohol.
Side note, not really related: A few days ago, I visited the “new” flagship Whole Foods (it’s a few years old, but I haven’t been yet). This Mecca of faux-green consumerism (fun fact: Leaving the huge front doors open to the 95-degree heat while blasting the A/C wastes electricity!) includes this bit of ingenuity:
It’s essentially a refrigerated corridor—you walk up to one side, the doors slide open, you get your beer (and goosebumps) and you walk out the other side. Definitely not green, but a welcome escape from a blistering day.
Austin rules. God I wish I still lived there.... Erica, you make me want to cry.
So you fear a plague of intestinal parasites if some bars and restaurants are allowed to welcome dogs, and yet you lament that Seattle doesn't have pulled pork vendors with no running water to wash their dishes and their hands?
I guess technically you're a liberal, of some sort, but that does not make you a member of the reality-based community.
Since moving to this area four years ago I've definitely decided that Seattle is a schizo town. On the one hand it's very liberal and tolerant and open minded. On the other, the city guvmt seems to obsess on strip clubs, bars, and nightclubs. Seattle seems like one of the *least* tolerant to nightlife. Why the fuck is this? Is it the dumb mayor, who seems to be a closet Republican?
One of the charms of San Francisco is that you can sit in the Stinking Rose, the finest garlic-centered Italian restaurant in the nation, and watch the rumpled middle age men slink into the titty bar across the street. Now *that's* civilization!
elenchos - you don't think that ECB would actually fly to TX burning precious carbon based fuel and eat pork the worst of all foods vis-a-vis GW and eat in restuarant without dog certain protection, do you?
she's in seattle riding her bike from salad bar to salad bar
perhaps they allow trailer food because of empty lots all over the town?
bird flu
When I saw the photo, I assumed ECB was writing about Austin taco trucks--a phenomenon we have come to know and love here in Seattle. But somehow she was using a photo that could have been any of the approximately 30 thousand taco truck/buses in the Seattle metro area to illustrate the kind of street restaurant we *don't* have here. I don't follow...
Admittedly, she has a point about the impossibility of getting a beer with your street food--a strange confluence of the city's Progressive-era tee-totaling alcohol codes and hiz honor the mayor's peculiar anti-nightlife campaign.
i moved here from austin three years ago and i have to say that i appreciate it more now that i'm away. i never realized how amazing austin is... the food, the culture, the grit, the grime, the sun, the land, the beer, the beautiful people-- everyone from seattle that i have taken there to visit hasn't wanted to leave.
i will be going back as soon as i am done with this city, which is going to be soon.
buy - buy
i'll bet the bus drivers in austin even let you off at curbs not designated as bus stops, too... sounds like utopia
what about skillet?
http://seattle.metblogs.com/archives/2007/09/the_hunt_for_an.phtml
the larry's in lower queen anne had a walk-in beer cooler. i have no idea if it is still there, or what the replacement store is like at all for that matter.
Why would you waste your time going to Whole Foods when you could go to Central Market?!
Oh lord, Central Market gains 100 points for being awesome, and loses 100 points for giving me food poisoning every single time I've bought sushi from them.
grocery store sushi is always a bad idea.
central market is far superior to whole foods, though the flagship WF lets you buy a beer from the beer alley and walk around and drink it in the store! you can even sit on the patio and eat food outside and drink beer, something that would never happen outside a store in uptight seattle.
aside from that, i have never had ice cream as good as Amy's Ice Cream from Austin... yum.
Come on Erica, what about the creepy guy selling hotdogs by Rplace on weekend nights to the you'd-have-to-be-drunk-to-buy-one crowd? Or the guys on Pike selling grilled-up street food by neighbours?
All the taco trucks and walk-in beer coolers in the world couldn't change this simple fact:
Texas sucks ass.
Man you guys complain about EVERYTHING. Everything sucks but you. Whatever.
It hurts me in my heart to see so many people unhappy in Seattle.
I would do anything to get you guys to move out of Seattle and to be somewhere else where you're happier.
You're not stuck in this city. There is help for you poor poor people.
And if I have to organize an army of Public Iterns, I will work to get all of you people who are living in despair here to move away to That Much Cooler City.
That moment cannot come soon enough.
"nearly impossible"
Behold the northgate taco truck: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1324095
Taqueria La Fondita or the White Center Taco Truck (15th and 98th SW) kicks butt of all taco trucks. Tortas. burritos. Mulitas. Horchata. Yum.
http://www.lostacotrucks.com/seattle/
I think it's like comparing apples to oranges -- very nice apples and very nice oranges. Lived in and loved both cities - and they both have their equally great culture... You can't really do 'Austin' in Seattle
Re: Taco trucks, yes, I'm aware of them (see the link I provided). My point was that the regulations (one sink, yes, but FOUR?) make it very difficult to get a mobile food business going.
Re: the ECB-should-move-back-to-Texas chorus: Utterly predictable.
And BTW, organic, non-feedlot pork (which this was) is much more climate-friendly than any kind of beef.
So “red” Texas has more freedom and less regulation than “blue” Washington? To quote Captain Renault "I'm shocked, shocked"…
No, you aren't suppose to sing the praises of Austin in a Seattle paper/SLOG. We want them to stay there and not move here and raise the price of rent and throw their uptight rules on our party. "Keep Austin Beautiful: Don't Move Here". Speaking of party, lest we not forget The Party Barn drive-thru liquor. Yee haw!
-Vic who moved back to ATX because I got sick of listening to whiny, negative, namby-pamby N'westerners cry about smoking cigarettes, eating meat and their sad, sad Seasonal Affectiveness Disorder.
Why should I let you risk your life eating from a roach coach with only ONE SINK (gasp!) when you won't let me take my life in my hands by going to a restaurant with dogs? If I can't be free to live my life I'm not going to lift a finger to help you be free to live yours.
ECB- "And BTW, organic, non-feedlot pork (which this was) is much more climate-friendly than any kind of beef."
How about comparing eating pork to say flying to the moon - ah maybe you could eat a vegie crepe and BTW do you think organic non-feedlot pig shit don't smell?
"The study showed that one kilogram of pig manure can produce 100 liters of methane gas per day"
25: Agreed-- but beef is still worse, which was my point.
But the real point was that you were eating meat - meat eating worse than driving a car. The fact that pork may be less bad than beef (which is in doubt) isn't much of a point. It's like driving a little Hummer.
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