Belleville business owners balk at proposal to allow food trucks downtown on regular basis

Several restaurant and bar owners are concerned about a proposal to allow food trucks to park in downtown Belleville on a regular basis.

One is Bennie Parr, owner of Bennie’s Pizza Pub. He sent an email to aldermen and Mayor Patty Gregory, asking them to review and possibly revise city policies before setting a precedent.

Shoehorn Brewing has asked to park a food truck on a nearby city street two days a week for nine months.

“I’m not trying to hurt Shoehorn,” Parr said in an interview, noting that he called the microbrewery owner to explain his position. “I just think there’s a loophole, and city officials need to find a way to close the loophole and make sure the playing field is level.”

Parr agrees that food trucks are needed during street festivals to accommodate large crowds, and it’s fine if businesses or organizations bring them in occasionally for special events. But, he said, the level of regularity being proposed by Shoehorn violates the spirit if not the letter of the law.

City ordinances prohibit food trucks in downtown Belleville unless they’re part of a special event approved by the City Council.

Parr said brick-and-mortar businesses undergo inspections, obtain permits, generate sales-tax revenue for Belleville and pay extra fees to maintain and improve the district, while food-truck vendors need only spend $100 a year to get licenses to operate in the city.

“Most of these food trucks are coming from other cities,” Parr said. “Some of them are from St. Louis.”

Shoehorn’s proposal takes the form of a special-event request that is scheduled to be voted on by the City Council at its meeting Tuesday night. The event is being called “Food Truck Days.”

The request calls for a food truck to be parked along North Church Street, just east of Shoehorn, from 5 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays and noon to 9 p.m. Sundays March through November. Different vendors would be invited on a rotating basis, according to microbrewery co-owner Mike Johnson.

“It’s about getting more people to visit us and visit downtown Belleville in general,” he said.

The microbrewery’s roots go back to 2020, when it was “shoehorned” into the back of the Down the Hall Homebrew retail store. They moved into a newly-renovated space at 225 E. Main St. about a year ago. Shoehorn serves beer, wine and cider, but no food.

Johnson brought in food trucks for “Food Truck Tuesdays” last fall. It was popular with customers, he said, so he decided to try and expand to twice a week this year.

“If the issue is that (other restaurant and bar owners) don’t want to have competition with food, my question would be, ‘What if I opened my own kitchen?’” he said. “We would be competing six days a week all day.

“So it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me to try to snuff out competition when it comes to food trucks that are occasional versus if we had our own kitchen. ... If it’s an issue of, ‘We don’t want competition,’ I think that’s anti-business and anti-growth in Belleville.”

Carmen Duco and Jamie Eros, alderwomen for Ward 2, which includes East Main Street, didn’t return calls for comment.

Scott Schmelzel, owner of Big Daddy’s 618 bar, said downtown business people want to do whatever they can to support Shoehorn because the owners have made a significant investment in Belleville and the microbrewery has had a positive impact on East Main Street.

Schmelzel remodeled Big Daddy’s during the COVID-19 pandemic and eliminated its kitchen. He said he has considered inviting a food-truck vendor to set up on his private patio to feed customers, so he understands why the concept would appeal to Johnson.

Food trucks have been a “hot-button issue” in downtown Belleville for years, according to Schmelzel. But he rejects the idea that they’re controversial due to fear of competition.

“We applaud competition within the district,” Schmelzel said. “Go ahead, open up a kitchen. Invest and compete. We welcome that. What we don’t welcome is competition coming in from outside the district, taking the dollars and then leaving the district.”

Schmelzel said downtown businesses work cooperatively on many projects, but sometimes an action that benefits one can damage the “greater good,” and this may be one of those cases.

The nearest restaurant to Shoehorn is Tavern on Main at 301 E. Main St., on the corner of Main and Church.

Owner Mark Onstott, like Parr and Schmelzel, said he hopes the microbrewery is successful. But he doesn’t like the idea of large food trucks taking up parking spaces along Church Street. He already rents a private parking lot to accommodate his customers.

Onstott said many business owners have invested in nice buildings and patios, helping to improve the appearance of downtown Belleville.

“I don’t think we need food trucks all over the place,” Onstott said. “I just think it brings the curb appeal down. ... I’m like Bennie. Food trucks for special events, yes. Day to day, no.”

The City Council will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall. Aldermen usually meet on the first and third Mondays, but this week’s meeting is delayed due to the Presidents’ Day holiday.

Editor’s note: This story was corrected to clarify that Shoehorn asked to bring in one food truck that would take up two parking spaces, instead of two food trucks, on Tuesdays and Sundays.