Street Vendors Team Up To Feed Occupy Wall Street

Because sometimes everybody needs a smoothie (Mattron's flickr).

One side effect of the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park is that local workers who used to eat lunch in the park have been going elsewhere. And the Street Vendor Project (which you know from the Vendy Awards it organizes) also points out that the "extremely generous donations of food to the movement have made business tough for local food vendors." But help is on the way: It was announced today that the Project has teamed up with Occupy Wall Street to let those who want to donate food to the movement do so, while also helping local businesses.

The new deal is pretty simple. Instead of donating food directly to OWS, generous folk can donate right here to the Street Vendor Project, a nonprofit, which will then use that money to buy foods from local vendors to feed the protesters. This way not only do the occupiers get good grub, but hardworking vendors get paid and the FDNY doesn't have to bitch about another set of generators—well, in a perfect world.

The carts affiliated with the Street Vendor Project/OWS include the New York Hot Dog Cart, Sam's Falafel, Aly's Breakfast Cart, Coffee on the Run, Bombay Biryani, NY Life and Fruit Salad Bar, Biryani House, 99% Vegetarian and A-Pou's Taste. You can learn more about the program here. Between this, animal healthcare, all those tents and those porta-potties things down at Zuccotti Park are getting downright civilized.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Garth Johnston in Food on November 7, 2011 11:10 AM

Comments [rss]

remyngtin

anti-semitic OWS accepts food from terrorists

The_Green_Devil

Wonder how the right-wing fucktards at the Post will spin this?

ganghiscon

Many of the vendors are probably muslims. The article will write itself from there.

Puma Bydesign

Many of the vendors ARE Muslims!

Detex

Post Headline: OWS discreetly funding Muslims and other anti American groups!

haha

nomadnewyork(Adrian)

I think this is a great idea. I'm not indigent so I don't eat the food in the park (besides the fact that I've seen hair in the peanut butter the couple of times that I've delivered meals there), I always try to buy locally. When we say that we want to support small businesses, you don't get much smaller than these 99%er guys who have families to support too.

Michael

Glad to see Sam's getting some business. Best falafal in the City. OWS is lucky to get some of his fare.

shocktheday

Don't buy into this ! ... it's Bloomberg's way of kicking us out of Zucotti Park by giving us all the runs.

Inkognita

Some people might say the only thing that's running is your mouth.

Detex

Wow! I wish I had a tiny snare drum!

Detex

So i wonder what http://streetvendor.org/ cut on this is? Someone is going to make a pretty penny!

Inkognita

Yeah, I'm wondering also how they're even going to accurately track that the full amount of the donated money goes only to the OWS protesters. Will OWS pass out food coupons with a face value on them to be redeemed with the vendors? Good intentions aside, this project could easily result in overpricing and even fraud if it's not set up well and monitored.

Detex

I actually can't wait to see how much fraud they will find if they audit that Kickstart account! i saw that the general assembly gave almost $20K for 20 tents! WTF kind of tents are we buying? You can get a LARGE NorthFace expedition quality tent for a grand, they certainly don't need that!