Beaufort joins Port Royal in food truck frenzy

Sometime next spring, Tim Goddard will tow his shiny, new red trailer into position and lift the window as he did this week in an empty parking lot a block from Bay Street.

An image of a giddy peanut and dapper ear of corn painted on the side will greet customers in the city of Beaufort for the first time.

Goddard’s Colonel Cobb Entrerprises serves up jumbo boiled peanuts and roasted corn on the cob. Beaufort passed new food truck rules this week that will allow mobile vendors like Goddard and others to operate in more areas of the city.

The parking lot on Bladen Street near the Santa Elena History Center and the city’s parking lot at 500 Carteret St. will be the best for traffic, Goddard thinks.

“Everybody’s looking forward to it,” Goddard said. “Nobody’s ever had the opportunity to set up in (these places). Beaufort kind of lagged in the back.”

Goddard doesn’t expect to start peddling peanuts in earnest in Beaufort until the weather warms during the spring.

Beaufort joins Port Royal in opening its arms to the increasingly popular rolling restaurants, which spread word of their location via social media. In Port Royal, trucks like It’s Only Fair serve up funnel cakes and corn dogs at the Sands Beach or Paris Avenue with only a few hours’ notice.

The trucks have been a hot topic in Bluffton and on Hilton Head.

Beaufort had been open to food trucks only in commercial areas with multiple businesses, like shopping centers. And some have set up there in the past.

Time to Eat opened in Beaufort Town Center in October.

But the trucks like to move around. Now they have more options.

“Most food truck guys don’t want to be in the same place every day,” Charles Francis, who with his wife own Beaufort’s Crave CupCake Botique, said when the city began considering the new rules. “They’re looking to set up a moment in time — preferably a time you’re not competing with a brick-and-mortar (business).”

Some city parks and a couple of downtown parking lots are open for business. Food trucks can operate on private property with written permission from the owner and following a set of standards laid out in the new city ordinance.

Some places now open, like Southside Park and Pigeon Point Park, won’t see the same traffic as the downtown locations, Goddard said.

The trucks and trailers can’t do business in neighborhoods or Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park. A $200 annual permit and business license is required.

Here’s where you could see food trucks under Beaufort’s new rules:

▪ 500 Carteret St.: The site of a new Beaufort technology incubator. City officials hope to pair the tech culture with trendy food trucks just outside the door.

▪ Bladen Street lot: Behind the Santa Elena History Center is an empty lot with a view of the Beaufort River.

▪ Southside Park: A little out of the way on Southside Boulevard, but a planned gathering of trucks could draw a crowd on the right day.

▪ Pigeon Point Park: The popular playground was the former site of the Beaufort Farmers Market.

This story was originally published November 11, 2016 at 11:07 AM with the headline "Beaufort joins Port Royal in food truck frenzy."