The gourmet food truck industry is still sweeping across the country. Once referred to as roach coaches, within the last 4 years mobile food has made a strong comeback to become the fastest growing trend in the restaurant industry. Broadcasting their whereabouts on Twitter and other networks has replaced the need maintain a brick and mortar business. Aside from the help of social media, it’s their unique options like; Korean Tacos, shredded BBQ Pork on a Waffle, Creme Brulee, and Kobe Beef Sliders, that has been the key to success for these mobile food businesses.
Klout is a San Francisco based company that provides social media analytics that measures a user’s influence across their social network. The analysis is done on data collected from sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Linked In and measures the size of a person’s network, the content created, and how other people interact with that content. Last year, the folks at Klout were interested in finding the most influential food trucks in the industry for 2010.
This year Mobile Cuisine Magazine has continued this tracking and investigated the Klout statistics to see which food truck is the most influential in 2011.
Coming in first this year, just as they did last year, is The Big Gay Ice Cream truck from New York City. Serving soft serve ice cream with a twist, like their ‘Salty Pimp’ which is vanilla ice cream, Dulce de Leche, sea salt, dipped in chocolate. Coming in second this year is a truck from the Midwest serving pizzas which are prepared using the best locally grown produce, zesty spices, finest Wisconsin mozzarella and other seasonal items., Streetza Pizza. In third, and dropping a spot from last years results is, The Grilled Cheese Truck, who offers anything from the traditional american cheese sandwich to a tasty ‘Cheesy Mac and Rib’.
After we analyzed analyzed literally thousands of the nation’s trucks through Klout, once again LA and NYC dominated the list, with a couple surprising results from Las Vegas and Washington DC. So here are the Nation’s top 11 Food Truck Influencers for 2011.
Please note: Due to a technical SNAFU, the Snatch Truck of Indianapolis, IN was left off our initial list due to KLOUT showing them with their owners profile name, not the truck’s name. We have made the correction to the list and extend our congratulations and apologies to them.
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#1 Big Gay Ice Cream (Klout score: 73)
New York City, NYÂ @biggayicecream
#2 Streetza Pizza (64)
Milwaukee, WIÂ @streetzapizza
#3 The Grilled Cheese Truck (63)
Los Angeles, CAÂ @grlldcheesetruk
#4 Coolhaus (60)
Los Angeles, CAÂ @COOLHAUS
#4 Fukuburger (60)
Las Vegas, NVÂ @fukuburger
#4 Red Hook Lobster Pound (60)
Washington DCÂ @LobstertruckDC
#7Â Grill em All (59)
Los Angeles, CAÂ @GrillEmAllTruck
#7Â Kogi BBQ (59)
Los Angeles, CAÂ @kogibbq
#7 Scratch Truck (59)
Indianapolis, INÂ @ScratchTruck
#7 The Sweets Truck (59)
Los Angeles, CAÂ @TheSweetsTruck
#7Â Wafels & Dinges(59)
New York City, NYÂ @waffletruck
Honorable Mentions:
With a Klout score of 58, these trucks just missed the top 10: NY Slice Truck – Indianapolis, IN; Nom Nom Truck – Los Angeles, CA; Korilla BBQ – NYC, NY; King of Pops – Atlanta, GA; Jogasaki Burrito – Los Angeles, CA
Please note that Klout updates their scores daily, so these results will change throughout the year. We arrived at our top 10 based on the Klout scores from 7/18/2010.
