By Sally Clark, Seattle City Council

Ed. Note: This article originally appeared in Sally Clark's newsletter "Seattle View."

Do you have a favorite taco truck? Have you tried a sandwich from the roving pig truck? Have you tracked down Skillet? Did you vote for Marination Mobile when it won the title "Best Food Cart in America?"

Some people in Seattle are still nervous about lunch or dinner from a mobile van, but more and more of us are venturing out to try street food.

Mobile food vendors are big business in cities all over the United States, and Seattle's scene is no slouch despite archaic rules for what you can sell on the sidewalk.

I am part of work underway to modernize our city rules and our city/county health codes to better reflect the boom in creative street food.

Mobile food vending can be 1) A mobile food cart on the sidewalk (like a hot dog or pretzel stand on wheels), 2) a vehicle out of which food is prepared and served (like Tacos Los Potrillos at Graham and Rainier, Skillet or Maximus/Minimus) usually on private property like a parking lot, or 3) a temporary stand (not on wheels) on a private lot.

Vendors who get into this business have a thin profit margin, despite not having the bricks-and-mortar expenses of restaurants and cafes. That's the way of the food world.

City sidewalk vending rules currently only allow hot dogs, popcorn and espresso. That may be why we see the more creative mobile vendors serving from parking lots.

Mobile vendors may not pay rent and utilities in the same way as restaurants, but they have meet health and sanitation rules. The carts and buses themselves go through inspection as do the "mother ship" kitchens in which the carts do their prep work each day.

A team of city and county staff has been working with mobile vendors over the past months to review Seattle's rules and figure out how to bring us into modern times.

The health code, street-use rules (like not blocking sidewalks with carts or lines of customers), fire safety and buffering from nearby businesses all have to be accounted for by a successful vendor.

Also, we have to figure out what works in different neighborhoods. What's right for Downtown may not work in Lake City. One person's vibrant street scene is another's jammed sidewalk.

In a rough economy, creating opportunities for small businesses with low startup costs and investment, resulting in a greater diversity of food options is, in my mind, a great thing, so long as we do it right.

Sally Clark can be contacted at sally.clark@seattle.gov.