The Shutdown is Killing DC’s Food Trucks

Federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations speaking with a food-truck vendor on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. this past August. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“This is how slow it is. We have to fake customers!”

William, owner of the District of Columbia Coffee Co. truck based on the National Mall, made this wry observation while asking me to pose for a photo. He wanted it for use in an Instagram promotion because, frankly, anything would help at this juncture. Business has been down significantly during the government shutdown, as the tourists and federal workers that usually frequent his truck have no reason to come by.

An amiable man, William offered me a fresh cup of coffee for my trouble, but I declined as I’d already had two that morning. I handed back the empty after he got his snap. Later, I’d sneak a peek at the caption he’d added to the post: “Feeling down and come with a frown? Let’s chat for a while, you’ll leave with a smile.”

There are few smiles in D.C. these days, especially among the food-truck vendors like William. After helping him with his promotional needs, I spent some time talking with other operators on Maryland Ave. outside Washington’s L’Enfant Plaza Metro station. My goal was to find out how they were bearing under the strains of the ongoing government closure. While many are trying to keep their chins up, they also acknowledged, like William, that the situation they find themselves in is bleak.

The shutdown is now well into its fourth week. And it is taking a toll on the federal workforce, many of whom have been furloughed and some of whom endured an extra dose of pain as a result of the administration’s legally dubious “reduction in force” orders intended to permanently downsize various agencies. Federal employees who are still hoping to get through the shutdown with their jobs intact believe that once the government reopens, they will receive back pay. But none of that money (if it even comes through) will go to the food trucks that typically line the National Mall. Reliant as they are on the typically heavy tourism at Washington’s free museums and monuments that are inoperable without government funding, they are experiencing the shutdown as pure privation.