.Rent-A-Food-Cart

The conventional wisdom is that starting a food truck or food cart business is far less expensive than opening a restaurant, and that’s true. But the fact is, it’s expensive to start any food business from the ground up. For many first-time mobile food entrepreneurs, the thousands (often tens of thousands) of dollars in overhead and permitting fees that you need to pay up front make it a cost-prohibitive proposition.

Here’s a novel idea: What if instead of having to buy their own cart, aspiring food vendors could just rent a cart — one that’s fully equipped and permitted? The 25th Street Collective, a sustainable business incubator and artisans’ collective based in Uptown Oakland, is hoping they’ll be able to make such a rent-a-cart program a reality.