It might sound crazy to open a restaurant at ground zero of the city of L.A.’s food truck wars, but Jeff Weinstein feels confident he can succeed – and avoid some of the dispute’s recent nastiness.
Burger chain the Counter, which Weinstein founded in Santa Monica in 2003, plans to open a franchise location as early as October in the Museum Square building in the 5700 block of Wilshire Boulevard. That block on the Miracle Mile has been the site of conflict between trucks and brick-and-mortar restaurants, with the restaurants complaining that they’ve lost one-third or more of their business to the trucks.
Recently, the conflict has escalated. Truck owners claim that employees of Museum Square management have been parking cars on Wilshire to take up parking spaces. Truck owners have called for a boycott of the brick-and-mortar eateries housed in that building.
But Weinstein feels the Counter can offer things the limited-menu trucks can’t: variety. The restaurant is known for giving customers free rein over ingredient choices, whether it be dill pickle chips, herb goat cheese spread or ginger soy glaze. The boast is that there are more than 300,000 combinations.
“We feel that immediate area is lacking a really great burger, and we’re going to bring one there, which is generally our motivation – we’re offering a full-service experience,” said Weinstein, who added he liked the corner location’s visibility.
The Counter has been credited with helping to popularize the gourmet burger boom in Los Angeles, where classed-up burger joints like 8 oz. Burger Bar, the Golden State and Umami Burger have opened in the last few years.
Weinstein began franchising in 2006. Today, there are 26 Counter locations nationwide, with another six scheduled to open this year. Only the Santa Monica, El Segundo and Washington, D.C., locations are company-run.
But the new franchise location is smack in the middle of a culinary war zone.
For the past year, food trucks – sometimes a dozen or more – have lined that stretch of Wilshire each day at lunch time. Lines of customers often form at the most popular trucks.
When the trend began, some established restaurateurs contacted police, who, in a series of aggressive sweeps along the boulevard last year, cited many of the trucks for minor parking violations or not having business licenses.
City Councilman Tom LaBonge, whose district includes the Miracle Mile strip in contention, became a champion for the restaurants, pressuring police and persuading the city’s Department of Transportation to lower the legal parking limit from two hours to one on the Miracle Mile.
Meanwhile, three of six Museum Square restaurants concepts have fallen. In fact, the Counter is moving into space vacated by restaurant chain Koo Koo Roo. (Koo Koo Roo may not have been a direct casualty of the food trucks; the chain announced in April that it was closing 10 of its 13 locations in California.)
Before that, Organic to Go closed its doors, then reopened months later as salad bar Mixt Greens. A space left empty by Toshi’s Fresh Asian, an independent takeout eatery, remains unoccupied.
Matt Geller, chief executive of the SoCal Mobile Food Vendors Association, which represents the trucks, said he doubted the Counter would suffer the same fate, given its success elsewhere.
“Sometimes you want to come down, grab something from the food trucks and run back up,” he said. “But sometimes you want to sit down and relax, and hang out with some friends.”
Trucks moving on?
Meanwhile, it’s possible that the gathering of food trucks at 5700 Wilshire may become a thing of the past. In addition to the parked cars that have blocked the trucks, measures by LaBonge seeking to regulate food trucks are making their way through City Hall.
The measures would ban food trucks from parking in metered spots and set up special parking zones for them. They will be reviewed by the City Council’s transportation committee in the coming months, said LaBonge.
Real estate developer Jerry Snyder, whose company J.H. Snyder Co. owns Museum Square, supports LaBonge’s efforts. He told the Business Journal in January that he had been in talks with a hamburger chain to open a restaurant at Museum Square but that it had pulled out because of the trucks.
Last week, he confirmed that chain was the Counter, and that “they expect the city will hopefully do something about the trucks.” He also declined to comment on, but did not deny, whether Museum Square management was having employees park cars along Wilshire.
Weinstein, who said the eatery will be run by a franchisee who already operates a Sunset Boulevard location, claims the trucks were never an issue in his lease discussions with Snyder.
He also would not take a position on LaBonge’s initiatives, saying he does “not want to get caught up in the ‘he said, she said’ political thing. I know there’ve been problems. We’re taking the Switzerland approach to things.”
Either way, the alleged strategy of parking cars along Wilshire to block out the food trucks has somewhat broken up the food truck party.
In fact, some truck owners are discussing collectively moving down to the Variety building at 5900 Wilshire, said Geller, whose association represents about 75 percent of gourmet food trucks in the city. Although there are fewer potential customers there and fewer parking spots, the other building is attractive because the management has encouraged trucks to park nearby given how few restaurants there are in the immediate vicinity.
Other truck owners have fought back, taping signs that read “Boycott” or “This Car Is a Lie” to the old cars taking up spaces on Wilshire.
“I’m not sure how it’s going to play out,” Geller said. “We’re going to continue to reach out to members of community and the city and work toward a solution.”
