It took 18 months, but the program designed to draw street vendors to downtown Tacoma has a trailblazer.
Ken Dunmire and his son Kyle opened T-Town Dogs this week in Tollefson Plaza, at Pacific Avenue and South 17th Street. For $3 you can get a dog and top it with one or all: cheese, sauerkraut, onions, relish, ketchup, mustard and barbecue and sriracha sauce. Two dogs cost $5.
T-Town Dogs has seen increasing traffic in the first three days of business, with more than 50 customers by Thursday afternoon. The Dunmires think they’ll do even better after adding some signs.
“People don’t know it’s a hot dog cart; they’re not used to seeing it,” Ken Dunmire said Thursday.
The Dunmires are keeping it simple: dogs and drinks only. They spent three months and $15,000 building their cart and commissary, where the cart returns each night, in a Maxi-Space storage unit near Parkland.
The men also founded Dunmire Enterprises to build commissaries and carts for other vendors. They have one client: two women who want to sell sandwiches in Tollefson.
The Dunmires were the first to run through a pilot project implemented in June 2010 that loosened some health department and city rules to encourage more street vendors.
The biggest change for food vendors was a relaxation of the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department’s commissary rule for the pilot project area, bounded by South Seventh, South 21st, A and Market streets. Carts operating there can return to an approved food-preparation site each night instead of needing to operate just 200 feet away from it.
No one else has applied for a food cart, said health department spokeswoman Bridget Vandeventer. She described the pilot program in terms that also describe Tollefson: “We built it, but no one came.”
Vandeventer said that now that the Dunmires have gone through the program, the department will consider expanding it countywide.
“We don’t want to get in the way of progress and good food, but we want to make sure the food people are eating is safe,” she said.
Kathleen Cooper: 253-597-8546
kathleen.cooper@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com
Twitter: @KCooperTNT
JOIN THE DISCUSSION | Register here
We welcome comments. Please keep them civil, short and to the point. ALL CAPS, spam, obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. Thanks for taking part — and abiding by these simple rules. A thorough explanation of rules of conduct can be found in our Terms of Service. If you have any questions, including why your comment may not be showing immediately after you submit it, be sure to visit the commenting FAQ.