Forgive Tacoma for looking due south, getting a little jealous and finding something to strive for. It's almost unavoidable at this point. Portland, Ore., with its bike lanes, mass transit, plethora of hipster coffee shops and - most important to this story - abundance of food carts, has obviously done something right. Only 130 miles up Interstate 5, Tacoma can't help but look at Portland and say to itself, "Why can't we do that? Why can't we have that here?"

Of course, the most important reasons are obvious: Tacoma is home to less than half as many people; we're far less progressive (read: kind of backwoods); and our beloved city features a downtown core that's, well, shall we say, less than inhabited much of the time.

Tacoma is Tacoma, and even as one of its most ardent supporters, it's not hard to see the obvious: Grit City will probably never be the cultural and artistic epicenter that Portland is right now. Sorry if this realization pisses in your Cheerios, but it's true.

Still, it doesn't stop Tacomans, and possibly more important Tacoma officials, from looking to Portland for ways to improve the city - and rightfully so. With a city doing so much right, so close, it'd be almost criminal not to try to steal a sheet from Portland's playbook.

Enter the food cart, and Tacoma's attempts to cultivate them and the vibrancy they create.

Birth of a pilot program

Earlier this year, City of Tacoma officials, leaders of small business and (perhaps reluctantly at first) the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department (TPCHD) started talking. The subject was simple: How can we make food carts a reality in Tacoma? For a variety of reasons, most at the table were driven to make this happen. Tacoma officials wanted food carts because of the cultural and economic activity they might create - no doubt still stinging from the Russell rejection, and the vague insinuation that one of the global investment firm's reasons for leaving Tacoma for Seattle was the Emerald City offered more draws for employees, like food, entertainment and, you know, things to do downtown. Small business leaders, including the Downtown Merchants Group and Go Local, wanted food carts because they offered a low-risk, viable way of cultivating new revenue, entrepreneurship and attracting more people with money to spend.

The Health Department, whose job it is to make sure the food you eat from restaurants or vendors is safe, was at the table, at least at first, because they had to be. The main reason food carts were impossible in Tacoma and Pierce County was because of restrictions in place because of the W.A.C. (Washington Administrative Code) or specific health department policies, which cumulatively forbade anything but hot dog and espresso stands and required food carts to operate within 200 feet of a "commissary" - basically the kitchen, where the bulk of the food is prepared. Added to the other hurdles a potential business faced when looking at the possibility of getting a food cart off the ground - including plenty of fees and inspections - it was hardly worth it.

"Everyone was kind of leery, on my end anyway," says the TPCHD's Mike Davis of the start of the march toward easing food cart restrictions. However, he describes the process of sitting at a table with Tacoma officials and small business leaders as a learning experience, where it was eventually established - with perhaps a little prodding from new, more progressive leadership at the health department - that all parties involved could, in fact, work together without sacrificing safety - people like Davis' main concern. The process "opened up lines of discussion," Davis says, and has led to the health department taking a "more business friendly approach."

Tacoma City Councilmember Marty Campbell was also at the table.  

"We approached the code with a pair of scissors, not a typewriter," says Campbell. "We wanted to streamline the process, and create a no-wrong-door policy."

Through a few months of discussions, a plan was eventually hatched. Modeling a game plan after Portland's approach, as well as similar efforts in the city of Seattle to cultivate a food cart culture, a pilot plan was instituted by TPCHD that would allow food carts slinging more than hot dogs and espresso to operate within a designated area of downtown, what's known as the Downtown Tacoma Business Improvement Area, bounded by South Seventh Street, South 21st Street, A Street and Market Street. As a test run this year, the health department would relax the binding commissary rule for carts operating within this area, as long as they had a commissary available for inspection that was within the county, and that they returned to every night. Carts would also have to abide by roughly 20 other rules, including getting a business owner's permission to set up a cart in front of their business and obtaining access to running hot and cold water and a bathroom for employees within 200 feet of the food cart.

Believe it or not, even with all the rules one must still follow in pursuit of food cart glory, these changes mark drastic improvement.

For their part, the Tacoma City Council passed measures that now allow food carts - operating within the aforementioned restrictions - anywhere in the city. Though the health department had only agreed to give the go-ahead to carts to be operated within the area of the pilot program, the idea was if all goes well, and cart owners play by the rules and keep the food safe, food carts would eventually be allowed throughout the entire county. When (and if) that happens, Tacoma wanted to be ready - at the front of the march toward food carts.

"We wanted to create the infrastructure for creating a downtown where people want to be," says Campbell. "I think we were very focused on getting where we needed to go."

In action

In June, after the haggling and finagling were final, the official food cart pilot project kicked off. City of Tacoma officials and TPCHD are now actively working together to make sure those with a real desire to get a food cart off the ground in Tacoma have a climate designed for success, not failure. Though so far the process has been slow, and filled with more inquiries than actual applications, all involved see the changes as a step in the right direction.

"The ball is in the court of the entrepreneur," says Campbell. "It's progress. It's part of making steps. It sends a signal that Tacoma is open for business."

"I'd love to see something like (Portland's food cart scene) in Tacoma," says Whitney Rhodes, new president of the Downtown Merchants Group. "We're really excited about it and the activity and life it could bring to the streets. The Health Department has been very supportive in this, and the end package is a good package."

On the process of the easing food cart restrictions, Davis, of TPCHD, says, "It's so easy to say (no because), ‘It's in the W.A.C., or it's in the rules,' but some of it was policy. We will help them to the greatest extent of our abilities. We try our best to get people approved. Being a roadblock is not the intent.

"I think it might be fun."

The Portland model

Much effort is made - even in the headline of this story - to draw comparisons between the food cart Mecca of the known world, Portland, and the city of Tacoma's aspirations. And there's truth to it. Surely, Tacoma would welcome the thriving food cart scene that our far-hipper neighbors to the south enjoy.

Truth is, though, that ain't going to happen, at least anytime soon. There are a number of reasons for this, the most simple being population and demand; Tacoma has far less of both.

There are also unique circumstances in Portland that make it work better than most places, including regulations that allow food carts to inhabit whole parking lots downtown and throughout the city, set up there permanently (or at least as permanently as something with wheels can set up) and stay overnight. In Portland, the food carts are also allowed to be bigger, and often resemble half truck or trailer/half cart shop-class monstrosities. None of this will be the case in Tacoma.

"It's inspired by Portland," says Campbell of Tacoma's food cart plan, "but we do things our own way."

Still, even knowing Tacoma will probably never rival Portland's food cart scene, there are plenty of lessons worth taking from our neighbors to the south.

Perhaps most ironic is the fact that Portland and Multnomah County don't have any specific plan or program to promote food carts, it simply happened - because the rules and magic of DIY capitalism allowed it to.

"The population itself helps support the food cart culture," says Ben Duncan of the Multnomah County Health Department, which oversees Portland's food carts.

Duncan says unnecessary restrictions, whether placed by the city or a county health department, are one way to ultimately doom food cart entrepreneurship. "It's really about breaking down those barriers," Duncan says, noting, however, that,  "We don't support or restrict food carts. It's not easier or more difficult (to start a food cart over a restaurant). That's kind of the point," says Duncan. Our job is to protect the public."

Lisa Wood, a former DJ at local station KFNK 104.9FM and Seattle's KEXP 90.1FM, moved to Portland and opened Big Ass Sandwiches with her husband, Brian, in 2009. She says some of the things that make food carts work in Portland are unique to the city and others are not.

"It's a combination of things. Portlanders are epicurious foodies who're open minded to new things and place high importance on locality and putting their money back into their communities," says Wood. "Portland is also built on manual labor and the blue collar folks really appreciate being able to walk up to a cart regardless of what they're wearing or if they're dirty from work, to get some great food for not a lot of money."

Brett Burmeister is editor in chief of Food Carts Portland (foodcartsportland.com) - described as "an ode to Portland's food carts, and a practical guide on where to find them and what to eat once you get there." Indeed, the food cart scene in Portland has spawned websites and bumper stickers, among other things. Burmeister has witnessed massive growth in the Portland food cart scene during his time at Food Carts Portland, and attributes much of it to a lack of unreasonable restrictions placed on the food cart industry by the city or health department.

"When we started the site, there were already a ton of carts, but since then, the scene has just blown up," says Burmeister. "Part of why it works so well is the lack of strict regulation as to where the carts can locate," says Burmeister. The carts are strictly regulated with regards to safety and health code, but there are little rules with regards to placement. Once a few carts got together in a lot, more came."

As far as advice for Tacoma, Burmeister keeps it simple, as he says we should.

"Limit the regulation about where they can park or set up shop. A cart isn't going to shut down a viable restaurant," says Burmeister. "Offer prospective owners an incentive like micro-loans. In this day and age, everyone needs a little helping hand. Carts employ staff, which pay taxes and support the community as a whole. They also bring the neighborhood together."

Ready to roll

With the pilot program in full swing, albeit with only preliminary interest from prospective cart operators so far, Tacoma and Pierce County have set the wheels in motion toward a future hopefully full of more downtown food and business options. Will Tollefson Plaza soon be packed with food carts, offering across-the-board cuisines? Will food carts act as a catalyst to small business, and allow food entrepreneurs a way to try their business ideas with reduced risk? Will you soon be able to procure a piroshky downtown on your lunch hour, from a man or woman behind a cart?

Only time will tell.

But, perhaps lost in the here and now, and the hoped-for food cart frenzy, is the real story of what's transpiring in Tacoma. For one, there seems to have been a dynamic shift, whether it's because of the food cart push or is simply exemplified by it. City and county agencies, led by new voices on the City Council and new county leadership, seem intent on reducing the friction between small business and those in charge of regulating them; there's a new and obvious emphasis being placed on making sure there's a culture of entrepreneurship in Tacoma and regulations don't impede that.

More importantly, however, a city forever mired in discussion of crime, gangs and drive-by shootings seems to have turned a corner. The very basic question "How do we keep people safe in our city?" is no longer all-consuming. Tacoma has reached a point in its evolution where it can have progressive discussions like this - a point where officials have time to debate and cultivate food carts rather than simply trying meet their constituents' most basic needs for safety and security.

"Crime has gone down. We've been afforded the luxury of thinking about creative things," says Campbell.

Look out, Tacoma. Food carts may be just the start.