Meals and Wheels: The Rise of Street Food

At last month's Manchester Food and Drink Festival, the presence of restaurants was fairly evenly matched by that of street food traders – but only just.

In part, that's because many of the city's traders are doing their own thing. Guerrilla Eats (GE) is a street food collective created by two traders, Dirty Dogs and Fire and Salt BBQ, who "found the bureaucracy and charges of traditional markets prohibitive for them to trade," and wanted to start something that "mixed food with a good night," according to Sarah Tarmaster, who handles their marketing. Currently, you can apply to be a trader through the Council-run Manchester Markets, but expensive pitch costs can eat into potential profits. GE's aim, meanwhile, is to keep "trader fees as low as possible" and "support up-and-coming traders." Their events are also an alternative to the city's other markets, which tend to capitalise on city-centre footfall rather than creating a "buzz around street food" by supplementing the food with a bar and music.

More than that, though, street food, and GE by extension, is a way for aspiring restaurateurs to cut their teeth: hone your product by testing it out on hundreds of eager mouths, build up a fanbase, and eventually move off the streets. In the capital, Pitt Cue, Meat Liquor and Pizza Pilgrims have all made the leap from street to seat. Several of Guerrilla Eats' traders did a pop-up in Chorlton-based The Beagle’s kitchen this summer, which proved an invaluable experience: “The guys at The Beagle gave our traders a great opportunity to see how a professional kitchen works – this was great as many of our traders would like to take the step into having a restaurant one day,” says Tarmaster.

Some restaurants are likely to see this as an unfair advantage: Richard Johnson, founder of the British Street Food Awards, has written about the tensions between bricks-and-mortar businesses and street food vendors in the Guardian. Following the opening of a new market on Briggate in Leeds, he reported in 2012, 'one street food trader says that he had a parcel of fish guts dumped on his van' and another was apparently threatened with a blockade 'if she dared to come back'. In this way, the street food movement can be seen as a new, threatening business model – a symptom of a high street and economy we're always told are failing.  

After all, why not start out on the streets? Getting a business loan, kitting out a premises, and employing/training staff without having a clue whether what you’re doing will work is risky to say the least. In that respect, GE has similarities with Liverpool-based Can Cook, which provides a Kitchen Share to support and train food businesses to grow. And where is Liverpool in all this? Well, Guerrilla Eats have been drafted in for a couple of the city’s major events this year, including Summercamp festival, indicating the need for new blood and that a grassroots street food scene at least has the potential to spread. 

Perhaps the entrepreneurship of it all is why arguments against street food are rarely fully articulated. Criticism has come, couched in class politics: Michael Hogan, writing in the Telegraph, resents 'paying over-the-odds for for food served out of a twee vintage VW camper by some gushing "gap yah" type called Seb, Jocasta or Benji', as well as the 'smugness' of the scene. And it's not difficult to find grumblings about perceived rip-off prices and 'hipsterification', as Hogan puts it.    

Certainly, for a generation many of whom have travelled to India, South East Asia and South America (those bastions of street food), the grub on offer needs to be cheap; and who isn't tired of hipsters (and the ubiquity of the word)? But GE are mercifully un-hip, and have talked of keeping prices at a maximum of £5, with the odd exception. Whether that can last remains to be seen, but it is difficult to begrudge independent traders a decent profit (if they even make one) when we're talking about the livelihood of one or two industrious people who are passionate about food.

But does street food really have a future in England, inclement weather aside? Tarmaster believes so. "With work it can – I think we just need to get away from the idea that quantity is better than quality, which is so endemic in the British culture. Unfortunately many councils in the UK still equate street food with cheap trailers and football crowds." Not Manchester City Council, though. They've embraced the movement, with posters advertising the 'tastiest street food' and calling for traders to join their ranks at the Piccadilly markets, which now take place three times a week (whether or not they're offering true 'street food', or just jumping on the bandwagon, is arguable). For now, it seems that GE are currently driving the bandwagon in the city – and so long as they don't re-brand their 'street food party' as a 'food rave', we're fine with that.