Twitter Taco Trucks: The Next Big Thing

by Chiara Atik · June 1, 2009

    You know how the Dessert Truck is always parked on St.Mark's, the Mud Truck can be found at Astor Place, and Super Tacos is on 96th and Broadway? Well, I guess people in LA like a challenge, because in order to find the much-lauded Kogi BBQ Taco Trucks, you have to follow them on Twitter.

    Here's how it works:

    Kogibbq tweets out its scheduled location each night, and has 27,083 followers. (Depressed that a truck has more followers than you? Yeah, me too.)

    Once a scheduled parking lot or corner has been tweeted (twitten? twote?), the race is on, and Angelenos jump into their cars, hop on their bikes, scooter, whatever they need to do to be first in line for tacos. (Except take Public Transportation. They won't do that.)

    The lines can get long (upwards of two hours), but that's part of the fun, especially in a city with few occasions with which to rub elbows with fellow citizens.

    There are no chairs, no tables, no shield from sun or rain; these people are DEDICATED to their food, and Kogi BBQ, by all accounts, does not disappoint.

    The owners are thinking of starting a branch in New York City. What do you think, would it take off here? We're already used to waiting in long lines at Shake Shack, but New Yorkers are used to convenience...would a gal in SoHo with a hunkering for tacos really want to go all the way up to, say, Columbus Circle when Calexico is so reliably waiting at Wooster and Prince?