[VSRJ]

This is a cool concept and design:

Midtown eatery would blend restaurant, food trucks and shipping containers



http://www.commercialappeal.com/news...rant-food-and/

A new kind of place to eat — a hybrid comprising a permanent restaurant and food trucks — is headed for a prominent Midtown corner.

While some use metal structures to build on the cheap, the concept here involves high design by the firm brg3s architects, the high symbolism with the adjacent L&N Railroad and Memphis’s role for intermodal distribution, and higher project costs.

The containers will be welded together, cut, painted, stacked atop each other, stood on end, and even offset to let in more natural light.

Documents filed with City Hall include a rendering of a sleek, modern two-story building of corrugated metal standing at 2120 Central, at the northwest corner of Central and Cooper where Midtown Nursery now operates.

Conceived as family friendly, The Food Truck will offer be a bar inside for adults and a fenced-in play area outside for children.

Diners will go into the restaurant or its patio and have a variety of choices to give the server. They can order from any of the food trucks on site that day or from the restaurant’s permanent kitchen that will make complementary items such as appetizers of dessert.

The development will need to be granted zoning exceptions from the Board of Adjustment, which will consider the request on Nov. 20.

There is supposed to be a 20-foot setback from Cooper, but because of the lot’s small size, the food trucks would have to encroach on that space by about four feet.

The plan includes running electricity to the food trucks so they don’t have to use their loud generators.

The partners also seek permission to erect a building of metal, a veneer usually frowned on in such neighborhoods. “The nature of the food truck business and the proximity to the railway support the creative use of metal at this location,” the letter states, noting, “the creative use of metal at this location works well.”

Construction could start as early as late winter or early spring and be completed as soon as mid-summer.