San Francisco Espresso Cart Wins Case to Park Near Restaurants

The Espresso Subito truck

The San Francisco city Board of Appeals has ruled that a coffee truck, Espresso Subito, has a right to park and sell at 90 2nd Street, despite objections from nearby restaurants that the truck will cut into their coffee business.

The spat began when Subito expressed an interest in moving from its normal morning spot, an alley off Mission St., to a higher-profile location off 2nd Street, in front of Harbor and Rowe restaurant and across from a Starbucks.

“You ask the restaurants like Harvest and Rowe and others that are in the impacted area, ‘What is the biggest part of your business in the morning?’ It’s coffee, all kinds of coffee,” Ken Cleaveland, the policy director of the local real estate advocacy group BOMA told local ABC 7.

At a hearing last night, the Appeals Board, a quasi-judicial body that hears complaints on a range of city issues, allowed Subito to move to 2nd Street, but a half a block away from the original proposed location. In San Francisco, food and coffee trucks like Subito obtain permits from the Department of Public Works.

Espresso Subito was founded as a wholesale roastery in 1998 by Gary Goldstein. According to the Subito website, in 2010, “Gary noticed the growing success and popularity of the mobile food scene, and he was hungry to enter the industry. He brewed a most brilliant idea and turned this successful catering business into a “Mobile Espresso Cafe.” In the summer of 2011, Espresso Subito’s Food Truck was born.”