Feature: Food trucks transform Vancouver dining culture

Only about five years ago, Vancouver's street food scene was little more than several corner hot dog stands, here and there. But now, the city has more than 130 licensed food trucks that are changing the business model by bringing fine dining out onto the streets, and changing the way that Vancouverites discover and enjoy food.

The owner of Super Thai food truck Chu Chu was at one of the city's annual food truck festivals, featuring Vancouver's best restaurants on wheels. Some of these trucks can cost more than 150,000 Canadian dollars (about 123,000 U.S. dollars) to equip. But business is booming.

She said food trucks are less complicated than restaurants and her truck has everything she needs to serve 50 meals an hour.

Her food truck is among a growing fleet on Vancouver's streets as part of the city's emerging street food culture.

"I love cooking and also for me I think food truck is very interesting. You can move around. Restaurant (is) like, people have to go to you, but food truck you go to them. You have to see many different places," said Chu Chu beside her food truck on Sunday.

The city of Vancouver charges food truck operators an annual operating fee of 1,100 dollars (approximately 900 U.S. dollars). They also need a business license and a health permit. Since 2010, the city has been licensing dozens of new food trucks a year.

Dougie Luv, a food truck owner of the same name, said food trucks give people the choice of getting away from white tablecloth and expensive wines.

"The alternative is going out and eating on a food truck. You get to any of these food trucks, they all have amazing chefs. You can actually go and have a meal for like between 10 dollars and 12 dollars. So, it's the wave of the future," said Luv.

He said he also has a permanent location where he serves his gourmet hot dogs, but getting his business onto the street has been a key to success.

"The greatest thing is going where the people are. You're going to where the people are, they're happy. They're excited to see and you know they're so excited to have the food truck. Because people are tired of the same old routine, the same old things and this is something new, something exciting. It's great. It's affordable. I mean how can you go wrong with that?"

The city has also created a smartphone app with a real-time map to direct customers to their favorite food trucks. And the customers appear to be responding.

Cait Fisher, a food truck customer, said there are a lot of different things that they are offering and a lot of different places.

"And so it's giving a different taste of different cultures, and something that's really accessible no matter where you are downtown. And it's kind of showing that Vancouver has all these different things going on and you can get it while touring around Vancouver, which is really great," he said. Endi