Mission Loc@l

Something’s stewing on the streets of San Francisco.

A new generation of street food vendors is changing the way that curbside chefs do business. In addition to offering high-end culinary treats, they’re using social networking sites such as Twitter to reach hungry customers. This new crop of creative entrepreneurs has created a new social scene centered on street food.

Mission resident Brian Kimball was one of the first street food pioneers to “tweet” about his curry—but it wasn’t part of his original plan. For him, it began with a simple idea drawn on paper with crayons. Disillusioned with his job as a staff therapist in the Tenderloin and tired of not having spending money, he drafted a business plan to sell steaming Thai curry served over rice at five dollars a bowl.

“It was the idea of starting something on my own,” he said. Kimball transformed a teacart he used at a Burning Man Festival into a portable food cart. It was painted violet with hand drawn yellow stars and letters that read “Magic Curry Kart.”

In March, he debuted the cart in front of his apartment building on Linda Street and someone mentioned it on Twitter.

“My friend did a search and came upon this tweet and was like ‘did you see this?’ So, the next week, almost the same group of people came out,” he said. “After that night it got on Mission Mission blog.”

Before then, he hadn’t considered subscribing to Twitter. He already used Facebook to spread the word. But his friends convinced him to reconsider.

Now, he sends out messages to over 4,000 followers on where to find him and when he runs out. After five years of living in the Mission, he’s finally met all of his neighbors. He also likes that the customers chat while standing in line waiting for food.

“That’s what I’ve grown to realize is what I like out of it,” he said. “I really like having these events and creating community.”

As the curry cart began to attract attention, the number of vendors grew. They all were using Twitter to notify their customers through the digital word-of-mouth.

Kimball’s younger brother Curtis now has the most followers on Twitter among the vendors, amassing over 7,800 subscribers over the last six months. Shortly following the curry debut, Curtis emerged with his own hand-built cart. Selecting a French dessert as his specialty, he sold crème brûlée in distinct flavors such as chocolate Grand Marnier and Bailey’s Irish Cream. While Kimball would cook in front of customers, starting with the curry paste, spices and vegetables, Curtis would torch the tops with a flame, creating a caramel crust.

A Frenchman named Murat also joined them with his homemade baked goods. Known as Amuse Bouche, Murat would sell tarts and cupcakes in front of the BART station. Other times he would join them on Linda Street with a folding table. He didn’t own a cart.

The woman who tweeted about the curry cart, Natalie Galatzer, started her own side business in May, called Bike Basket Pies. Like Kimball and a few other vendors such as the Chai Cart and Sweet Cart, she would only travel to places she could reach by bicycle. But she found a delivery route that she could work for her by delivering to homes and offices in her Mission neighborhood, next-door SOMA, and the edge of the Financial District.

Before the curry cart, Galatzer had thought about going into the pie business, but was discouraged by the high cost of farmers’ markets and rent for commercial kitchen. Her small business, dedicating one-and-a-half days a week for production and bicycle delivery had little overhead. Before she knew it, she was averaging 40 individual-sized pies a week.

A certified nutritionist living in the Mission District also liked the idea.

Kristin Hoppe started batting around the idea of selling seasonal soup when she went to one of the “community suppers” down the street from her apartment.

“I had been a couple times, getting his curry down the street. I loved that the community was coming together and eating food,” she said. “I wanted to bring nutritious, healthy organic food to the street as well.”

At first her husband Chris was skeptical, but he built her a metal frame basket cart with room for a pot of soup inside. The following week in May after he finished the cart, Hoppe launched her Sexy Soup Cart on the now-familiar Linda Street cul-de-sac. But she didn’t go out alone the first time. Next to her stood the Magic Curry Kart, the Crème Brulee Cart and Amuse Bouche.

“My first outing was awesome,” said Hoppe, who went to culinary school. “I made some asparagus soup. Everybody loved my soup.”

Like Kimball, she liked that food was bringing people together. They would stick around to eat and socialize. “It was really fun to meet people in the community and to serve them healthy food,” she said. “It was like a family supper for the Mission.”

Lately, another crop of vendors have emerged peddling homemade Indian street food, sweets, chai tea, adobo and gumbo. They’ve got names like Soul Cocina, Sweet Ride, Wholesome Bakery, Sweet Cart, Abobo Hobo and Gumbo Cart. They’ve set up one night a week in Precita Park in Bernal Heights, next to the Mission district.

“I think it’s kind of cool to come up upon this random grouping of food,” Kimball said. It makes a great little night out, he said.

Others like the Lumpia Cart and Toasty Melts, are harder to find on foot, but easy to find on Twitter. Like Kimball, the new crop consists of mostly professionals with day jobs. None are part of the original group. All are using Twitter. At least one carries an iPhone.

Kimball said he likes that people are doing something creative.

“There’s enough room for everyone,” he said. For people who ask him about starting their own business he said, “I try to give them a little bit of confidence. I tell them to plan for 20 and see if they like it.”

Seeing how many new vendors participated at a recent event in SOMA with names like Gobba Gobba Hey and Brazilian Bites, it seems that Kimball’s confidence-building skills may be working—or maybe food-lovers around town just can’t resist joining this curbside cuisine phenomenon. —Adelaide Chen