HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- No Brakes Bistro food truck owner David Stanley sees a potential gold mine in downtown Huntsville.

Stanley and his business partner, Boedvar Boedvarsson, would like to set up along Cleveland Avenue to feed the late-night crowds exiting Lone Goose Saloon and other downtown watering holes. The nearest restaurant, Sandwich Farm, closes at 10 p.m. on weekends.

"We wouldn't really be competing with any other restaurants," Stanley said Thursday.

But No Brakes Bistro may be out of luck because city rules prohibit food trucks from selling in public streets or parking lots. Marie Bostick, the city's manager of planning and zoning administration, said food tucks are welcome on private property downtown as long as they have the owner's blessing.

Stanley said he's not sure if Lone Goose has enough land to accommodate his 14-foot mobile kitchen, which in its previous life was a Lance delivery truck.

"We've had several requests for people to pull up and have food trucks in the parking spaces around the Courthouse Square," Bostick said Friday. "But anything like that that's publicly owned, you're not allowed to set up a private business."

There's a sliver of hope for Stanley and other aspiring food truck owners, however.

City planners have kicked around the idea of a "food truck park" away from any sit-down restaurants where on-the-go entrepreneurs like Stanley and Boedvarsson could set up daily. While officials haven't pinpointed a location, Bostick said a thriving food truck park could provide an economic "shot in the arm" to a struggling part of town.

"We haven't ruled downtown out," she said.

Meantime, No Brakes Bistro plans to continue selling food outside the Straight to Ale taproom on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. The Leeman Ferry Road brewery allows the food truck to use its private parking lot.

Stanley has also been in contact with several Cummings Research Park businesses, including Northrop Grumman, about setting up in their parking lots at lunchtime.

"We're trying to do more high-end, gastro-pub food," said Stanley. No Brakes Bistro's menu includes pulled pork smoked right on board, hand-cut fries and a bacon cheeseburger topped with crispy onions.

Stanley said the city needs to find a way to accommodate the food truck craze that 's taken flight in New York, Seattle, Houston and other big cities. There are only a handful of mobile food vendors in Huntsville now, but Stanley said he knows people who want to make cupcakes and burgers on the go.

"In bigger cities, the trucks feed the parking meters and can kind of go wherever they want," he said. "The cities view it as a cool thing to generate more foot traffic in downtowns."

The Birmingham City Council is

that would block food trucks and pushcarts from setting up within a block of any existing restaurant, limit their operating hours from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. weekdays, and require mobile vendors to pay a $500 annual permit fee plus $300 more to sell food in the city center.

"It's pretty dadgum egregious," Jason Parkman, owner of the Spoonfed Grill food truck, told

The Birmingham News

last month. "We pay a lot of money as it is already. We don't make a lot of money."

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