Construction forces Long Beach food trucks to find somewhere else to park

Food trucks that have parked near the Long Beach boardwalk for nearly a decade will not be in their normal location this year.

News 12 Staff

May 11, 2022, 2:51 AM

Updated 884 days ago

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Food trucks that have parked near the Long Beach boardwalk for nearly a decade will not be in their normal location this year.
The Super Block construction project is preventing the trucks from setting up on Riverside Boulevard and city officials say there is no space for them anywhere else.
Long Beach Parks and Recreation Commissioner Joe Brand says the city tried to find a new place for the vendors, but couldn't.
"We've looked at every other area in the city," Brand says. "Each truck is unique in that most of them require power, most of them require a water source and that's not something, believe it or not, that we have at our disposal at each of the ends of the block."
Michael Wachs operates Amanda Bananas, a truck that sells frozen banana treats.
He says the food truck operators counted on the money and it's their livelihoods.
"It hurt to know the community we served our food to didn't really have our backs in relocating us," Wachs says.
Wachs says this summer he will park his truck at Dox, a restaurant in Island Park.
However, he says the food trucks helped Long Beach recover from Superstorm Sandy and the city should find them a new location for summer 2023.
For this summer, beachgoers like Cindy Gutierrez, of Freeport, are disappointed that the "Shoregasbord" won't be happening.
"We enjoyed the food trucks around here," Gutierrez says.
Wachs says he learned that his truck wouldn't be at Long Beach this summer through the grapevine.
City officials say they knew as early as summer 2021.
The city of Long Beach also says they pushed for construction on the project to be delayed to ensure the vendors had a full season in 2021.