12.5% sales tax revenue FY jump
Food trucks vs. brick & mortar SF-FBA talk
Perhaps highlighting Shop Farragut/Farragut Business Alliance’s monthly second-Wednesday meeting Oct. 12 in Town Hall was the discussion of food truck expansion in Farragut.
“The thing that maybe concerns me a little bit is that we have so many surrounding communities that are having regular food truck rallies,” said Christy Wright, new SF-FBA member who owns Kiki’s Hawaiian Shaved Ice food trucks. “And I know, owning a food truck, how much we have to go outside of Farragut to attract customers.
“… We’ve got Lenoir City doing food truck rallies on Thursdays (and) doing it just across the line in Dixie Lee Junction on Thursdays; it’s kind of starting to take off a little bit,” she added. “Oak Ridge has a beautiful new food truck park; we’ve got food truck parks downtown (Knoxville).
“And we’re kind of sitting here in the middle (in Farragut) not doing a lot. I would love to see the Town even change its policies, honestly, on allowing that.”
In short, “Why couldn’t Farragut have regular food truck rallies … and allowing local businesses to set up tents … ?” Wright asked.
Stressing the value of “an outside environment,” she added, “I could see that for the summer months and the fall — having a place for families to come together, especially on Friday nights when they’re looking for something to do.”
Sue Stuhl, Town Parks & Recreation director, said the Town allows food trucks during special events, which include the Christmas holiday season “every night during Light the Park up to New Years” at Founders Park at Campbell Station.
However, Vice Mayor Louise Povlin, also a SF-FBA member, said, “We have a lot of restaurants that are still suffering from COVID — and we know that’s where 70 percent of the Town of Farragut’s projected revenue (in sales tax) for fiscal year ’23 is generated. We don’t have a (Town) property tax.
“A lot of the revenue that’s generated by food trucks, if they’re not (inside) Farragut we don’t get that revenue,” she added. “If it’s a regular thing, they’re pulling from our restaurants.”
As Stuhl noted, “We do allow food trucks for special events,” Povlin said. “… It’s a fine line that we have to walk here.
“And that’s kind of what the idea was for 35 North (at the corner of Kingston Pike and North Campbell Station Road), was to allow that food truck experience to come in — but for us to be able to capture the revenue,” she added.
“Of course, they did have issues with having consistency and they’ve had to move away from that.”
“You may feel that we’re behind, but we’re not behind — we support our brick-and-mortar No. 1,” Mayor Ron Williams, also a SF-FBA member, said to Wright.
Speaking of brick-and-mortar inside Farragut, “Our costs are stupid,” SF-FBA chair Candace Viox, owner of Water Into Wine bistro & lounge, said about excessive costs.
“Having had a food truck in two different states … I think what’s interesting is there are some towns and cities that found, when they brought them in, it actually brought so many more people to the area that it exposed them to those local businesses,” Wright said.
Moreover, “For someone like me and the other food trucks in Town, our taxes go to Farragut — and yet we spend 90 to 99 percent of our time in areas outside of Farragut,” the new SF-FBA member said.
“I understand what you’re saying — I really do — but at the end of the day we don’t have a property tax,” Povlin said.
