New St. Paul food truck hall wants you to do its promotion

The decor in St. Paul's Seventh Street Truck Park could be described as sports bar meets mid-century garage.

Tires and hubcaps adorn the walls. There's a water ski on a pillar.

A Volkswagen microbus is one of six vintage vehicles retrofitted as food trucks or bars sharing the space.

And the restroom entrances are port-a-potty doors. One recent lunch hour, Alexis Hoffman and her friends had finished eating, but couldn't leave without taking pictures.

"C'mon, how many times can you say I took a picture in front of a port-a-potty?" Hoffman said.

In fact, the whole place is selfie-bait, and that's the point. The Truck Park on the leading edge of the dining industry's effort to turn customers into their marketers by making their eateries too irresistible not to share online.

The Truck Park is an attempt to marry two eating crazes, said co-owner Brian Ingram.

"In Minnesota, the summers are so short. Food trucks are everywhere here," he said, "so we wanted to figure out how to bring them indoors and do a modern interpretation of a food hall."

Heather Lalley, an editor at Restaurant Business magazine, said the Truck Park is at the forefront of major industry shifts.

"For the moment, it's hitting, sort of, on all the trendy notes," she said.

First, consumers' embrace of fast-casual restaurants has given rise to food halls — a collection of small, independent operators under one roof. Lalley said the Truck Park captures the look and essence of a food hall.

Secondly, appealing to Instagram users is a smart move for the industry, she said, because they upload free advertising. Lalley said restaurants nationwide are tailoring their menus and designs to make them more photogenic.

"They are really giving diners all the tools they need to do their marketing for them," she said.

That's why you go to the trouble of making something like a $99, 20-pound ice-cream sandwich.

"The sole reason to do something crazy like this is so people can take pictures and post it to social media," Lalley said.

While social media is a key part of the Truck Park's business strategy, Ingram said, the food must deliver too. The menu is designed to offer both classics like chicken fingers and exotica like rattlesnake pizza.

"In this world today, it's Instagrammable and Facebook moments. And we wanted to create that but we wanted to be taken serious," he said. "It's a fine line you have to walk between being gimmicky and being real."

Reviews on social media have been mixed. There are raves for the restaurant's concept and atmosphere, and complaints about its food and prices.

But Ingram's a successful industry veteran who said he's opened over 250 restaurants nationwide, including the popular New Bohemia next door to Truck Park. Despite all that experience Truck Park wasn't an easy sell to city officials.

"What do you mean you want to bring a food truck inside?" he recalled the city saying. "You can't bring a food truck inside."

Zoning and planning issues were eventually resolved, and the Truck Park debuted in August.

And Ingram said it has a special place in his heart.

"This one's been my baby, from start to finish," Ingram said. "This is the most involved I've ever been."

Ingram said he has a downtown Minneapolis location planned for this year, and he's gotten requests to take the business model out of state.

But it remains to be seen whether the Truck Park will successfully walk the fine line between gimmicky and real; whether it'll endure like Instagram photos, or disappear like Snapchat's.

Ingram battled nerves on opening day because he didn't know if consumers would get it, but so far, he's encouraged.

"Literally the first day when we opened it," he said, "I started breathing again because of so many great comments."

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