It's hard enough resisting a fresh cupcake sitting placidly in the bakery case. Now that cupcake is coming after you.
In what harks back to the heyday of the Helms Bakery neighborhood delivery truck decades ago, Sprinkles Cupcakes of Beverly Hills will use a "Sprinklesmobile" to sell red velvet, lemon coconut, banana dark chocolate and other cupcake varieties starting next week.
"Mobile food is one of the hottest things going all over the country. Brooklyn has its ribs truck, Manhattan has its dessert trucks, and now Los Angeles has the cupcake patrol," said Clark Wolf, a restaurant and food consultant in New York.
Certainly any construction worker who has eaten at a "roach coach" or anyone who remembers the music of the ice cream vendor knows that mobile food is not new. What's different is the quality and the increasingly broad choices.
Here in Los Angeles, Locali, a natural- and organic-food convenience store in Hollywood, is selling high-end snow cones around town on its Icycle, a custom-built adult tricycle. Coolhaus, a purveyor of specialty ice cream sandwiches, is plying Echo Park, Culver City, downtown L.A. and Venice with the epicurean equivalent of the old ice cream truck.
"The whole concept of gourmet street food has really caught on," said Freya Estreller, co-founder of Coolhaus, an architecture-themed food company. "Mobile food is now pretty ubiquitous in Los Angeles. The city, with its urban sprawl, is particularly well suited to it."
When guests gather June 27 for the premiere of "Visual Acoustics," a documentary about architectural photographer Julius Shulman, they will dine at a mobile restaurant row. Guests at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA event can choose from among Sprinkles cupcakes, Green Truck organic fare, Barbie's Q barbecue, Tacos Ariza and other offerings.
"We wanted people to experience something more than passing by a table and grabbing hors d'oeuvres," said Sarah Rich, editor of Dwell magazine, which is organizing the event.
The Kogi Korean BBQ taco truck, started only last November, uses Twitter and social networking to announce its stops and attract as many as 800 people each time it parks.
In a synergistic pairing, Coolhaus and Kogi plan a joint appearance at the Brig bar in Venice on Saturday afternoon.
"The idea is that you create demand and then you reach it. It works better than if you are stagnant in one location," Estreller said.
