Food carts sit at the intersection of restaurants, mobile vending, and local permitting. The available statistics show a U.S. mobile food services industry with 12,487 employer establishments in 2023, while city-level rules can sharply limit where and how carts operate. The figures below separate national establishment counts from local permits, licenses, surveys, and regulatory requirements.
Contents
- U.S. food cart industry size
- What the industry counts
- New York City permits and licensing
- New York City waitlists and active units
- Portland food cart operations
- Los Angeles County requirements
- Customer attitudes and food-cart clusters
U.S. food cart industry size
The Census Bureau’s Profile for NAICS 722330 counted 12,487 U.S. employer establishments in mobile food services in 2023. This is the most directly relevant national figure for a food cart business because the classification explicitly includes motorized vehicles and nonmotorized carts, including hot dog carts and ice cream trucks. The Census Bureau defines an establishment as the central location that services the route, not each individual vehicle or cart (Census Bureau Profile 722330).
That definition matters when interpreting the number. A business operating several carts may be represented by one establishment if the carts are serviced from one central location. Therefore, the establishment count describes business locations in the industry, not a literal nationwide count of carts.
The 2022 Economic Census comparative table, using the 2017 NAICS basis, reported 10,062 establishments in the same industry. The table recorded 5,189 establishments in 2017, so the 2022 count was higher by 4,873 establishments. The same table counted 10,155 firms in 2022 and 5,211 firms in 2017 (EC2200COMP 2022). These are Economic Census measurements on that table’s classification basis and should not be treated as a vehicle count.
The national comparison is useful for scale, but it does not describe the experience of an individual operator. A food cart business still faces local decisions about vending locations, health approvals, fire safety, routes, utilities, and site access. Those constraints are visible in the city-level figures below.
What the industry counts
Mobile food services is a small part of the broader U.S. food-service economy when establishments are counted by Census industry category. The Census Bureau’s 2023 profile reported 714,532 employer establishments for food services and drinking places as a whole. Within that broad sector, special food services had 55,221 establishments, food service contractors had 29,512, and snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars had 85,140 (Census Bureau Profile 722).
For another comparison, full-service restaurants had 258,626 employer establishments in 2023 (Census Bureau Profile 722511). These categories are not interchangeable with mobile food services, but they help place food carts within the larger food-and-drink market.
| 2023 Census category | Employer establishments |
|---|---|
| Mobile food services | 12,487 |
| Special food services | 55,221 |
| Snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars | 85,140 |
| Full-service restaurants | 258,626 |
| Food services and drinking places | 714,532 |
The figures measure employer establishments, so they are not a complete measure of every informal, seasonal, or nonemployer activity. They also do not show revenue, profit, average cart sales, staffing per cart, or survival rates. Those distinctions are important for anyone using industry statistics to plan a food cart business.
New York City permits and licensing
New York City’s 2022 Street Vending Advisory Board report described a capped mobile food vending permit system totaling 5,100 permits (SVAB Report 2022). The report listed 2,900 citywide mobile food vending permits, plus 100 additional citywide permits reserved for veterans. It also listed 1,000 temporary seasonal permits and 1,000 green cart permits.
The same report listed 50 borough-specific mobile food vending permits per borough across four boroughs, or 200 permits in that category. It also described 445 new supervisory licenses added each year for 10 years beginning in July 2022 under Local Law 18. These are permit and license provisions, not counts of operating carts on a given day.
The report stated that non-veteran general vending licenses had been capped at 853 since 1979. A separate New York City Independent Budget Office report said the mobile food vendor permit cap was 3,000 in 1983 and later increased to 5,100 (IBO street vendor permit caps report). The two historical figures describe changes in the city’s permit-cap structure over time; they do not establish annual sales or business formation.
For operators, the key lesson is that New York City’s market is shaped by authorization capacity as well as customer demand. A citywide permit, a seasonal permit, a green cart permit, a borough-specific permit, and a supervisory license are different regulatory positions. Treating all of them as the same kind of permission can make a business plan misleading.
New York City waitlists and active units
The IBO report provided more recent measures of licensing pressure. As of October 2023, 10,992 people were on the non-veteran license waitlist, while 9,878 individuals were on at least one street-vendor waitlist. The report also counted 1,844 active legal vendor licenses: 775 non-veteran licenses and 1,069 veteran licenses (IBO street vendor permit caps report).
These numbers describe people waiting for licenses and active legal licenses, not the total number of food businesses or the total number of carts in the city. They also show why permit availability can be a central business constraint in a large urban market.
As of December 2023, New York City had 3,805 active mobile food vendor units. Of those, 3,755 were active permits and 50 were supervisory license permits. The IBO report said active mobile food vendor licenses were about three times higher than active mobile food vendor permits.
The report also tracked progress under the supervisory-license system. By December 2023, 108 of 342 supervisory licensees had initiated a supervisory license permit application. Of those 108 applicants, 50 had received the permit by December 2023. This is an administrative-status snapshot, so it should not be read as a measure of application success for every future applicant.
Portland food cart operations
Portland defines a food cart as a mobile unit where food is prepared and sold, and says the term includes trucks, trailers, and vending carts (Portland.gov Food carts). Two or more food carts on the same property count as a food cart pod. Portland says pods usually share services such as power, water, trash, or restrooms.
The city’s guidance also connects a food-cart project to site infrastructure. If trips increase by 15% or more, street, sidewalk, sewer, water, or tree upgrades may be required (Portland.gov Food carts research). That threshold is a planning rule, not a prediction of how much traffic a particular cart will generate.
Portland places specific limits on roaming carts. Vending carts that drive around cannot be left unattended for 30 or more minutes on public property. A roaming cart cannot return to the same residential block for two hours after leaving it, and it can vend on a residential block for a maximum of 10 minutes. These rules make a fixed pod, private site, and roaming model materially different operating choices.
Fire and fuel requirements add another operational layer. Portland Fire and Rescue requires an annual propane permit for carts using propane heat. A hazardous material permit is required when a propane tank is greater than 25 gallons. Portland’s food cart research page lists 503-823-7300 for permitting help (Portland.gov Food carts research).
Los Angeles County requirements
Los Angeles County says every food vehicle or compact mobile food operation must qualify for a permit before selling food to the public (LA County Mobile Food Facility Inspection Guide). New food vehicles and compact mobile food operation carts must go through plan check before approval. These requirements apply before public sales and are separate from any business decisions about menu, branding, or location.
The county says a Public Health Permit can be suspended if an 11-point violation is not corrected. After-hours inspections connected to permit suspension are billed at the overtime hourly rate. The county also says route changes must be reported whenever significant changes occur to a food-truck route and schedule (LA County mobile food route flyer).
For a food cart business, these rules illustrate why route flexibility is not purely a marketing choice. A change in schedule or service area can create a reporting obligation, while an unresolved violation can affect the ability to operate under the Public Health Permit.
Customer attitudes and food-cart clusters
Portland’s 2008 Food Cartology study mapped 170 food carts after filtering an original dataset of 470 mobile units (Food Cartology 2008). The study described 20 carts at the downtown Portland 5th and Oak cluster, three carts on separate lots at one Sellwood site, four carts at a Mississippi site, and three carts at a Cully site. It recorded 24 nationalities among the carts it analyzed.
The study also surveyed customers and vendors. Its online survey collected 474 responses, including 450 respondents who said they eat at food carts. The vendor survey captured 78 completed surveys from 126 delivered. Because the study dates to 2008, these results are historical evidence about the surveyed Portland market, not a current national estimate.
Customer sentiment was strongly positive in that study. Ninety-four percent of food-cart customers had a very positive or positive perception of food carts, compared with 44% of non-customers. Eighty-one percent of customers and 42% of non-customers agreed that food carts are a better use of a site than a parking lot.
The study found that 66% of customers strongly agreed or agreed that they have conversations with the operator beyond ordering food. Half of customers strongly agreed or agreed that they have a good relationship with one or more food-cart operators. In addition, 64% of customers wanted recyclable to-go containers.
Together, these historical survey measures point to several measurable themes: customer approval, place-making, operator interaction, and packaging preferences. They do not quantify current sales or forecast demand, but they give food cart businesses concrete customer-experience and site-design questions to consider.
The EPA’s 2019 Wasted Food Report used 5,418,681 restaurant employees and 330,296 restaurant facilities as restaurant-sector inputs in its food-waste model (EPA 2019 Wasted Food Report). Those figures are model inputs for the restaurant sector, not food-cart waste totals. They can provide context for why inventory planning and waste tracking matter, while avoiding the unsupported assumption that restaurant-wide inputs describe a particular cart.