- 16 hours ago
Every morning, thousands of New Yorkers line up at chrome breakfast carts for coffee, bagels, and doughnuts — fueling the city’s workforce with meals that cost just a few dollars. But behind this daily ritual is a fragile industry: one that depends on massive suppliers churning out pastries by the truckload, immigrant vendors working shifts at the crack of dawn, and a permit system so restrictive it’s sparked protests in the streets. In a city that runs on breakfast-on-the-go, these carts are a lifeline for workers and a multimillion-dollar business. Now, with rising costs and mounting legal battles, the future of New York’s breakfast cart industry is at a crossroads.
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00:01Every night while New York City sleeps,
00:03a hidden bakery in the Bronx
00:05cranks out tens of thousands of donuts from scratch.
00:10It's like a lot of flour flying everywhere.
00:14Before sunrise, more than 100 breakfast cart owners
00:17swarm Pandora Bakery for fresh pastries.
00:21They're a small part of New York City's
00:2320,000 mobile food vendors.
00:25They're like the OG Grubhub and Seamless.
00:28But running a business on wheels has never been tougher
00:31for the city's vendors,
00:3396% of whom are immigrants.
00:35They don't really understand what we gotta deal with
00:37in order to get here to be convenient for them.
00:40Brother, have an amazing day. Good weekend.
00:42For starters, it's a full-time grind.
00:44I gotta give my kids 20% of my battery
00:46and then I give everybody else 80% of my battery.
00:48Food cart permits are in such short supply
00:51that some vendors spend up to $25,000
00:54to rent one on the black market.
00:56My dad was on a wait list for almost 17 years.
00:59This system has turned New York City's street food scene
01:01into a high-stakes gamble.
01:03It's a very shady system.
01:05A lot of people have been scammed recently.
01:08All of this has made street food more expensive,
01:11prompting Mayor Alek Zoran Mamdani
01:13to campaign on lowering prices.
01:15If I was the mayor, I'd be working with city council
01:18from day one to make halal eight bucks again.
01:21So how does one pastry factory supply hundreds of carts?
01:25And why does New York City have so many food vendors
01:28but so few legal permits?
01:37Pandora Bakery runs 24-7.
01:40It supplies food carts, restaurants, and hotels
01:43across New York with breads, muffins, apple turnovers,
01:48and donuts.
01:51The morning shift starts at 6 a.m.
01:54And they have until sundown to make thousands of pastries.
01:58This is the dough, the mixer.
02:02We're making our own dough here.
02:05Konstantinos Kotzias founded the bakery in 1989.
02:10He keeps a close eye on the dough mix
02:13because the recipe changes daily based on the weather.
02:16When it's cold, you put more water.
02:19Today is a very easy day to make donuts.
02:22Just 15 bakers keep this kitchen turning out dough day and night.
02:29It takes at least five years for a baker
02:32to learn how to do the donuts the right way.
02:37Some of the best bakers, like Hugo and Julio,
02:40have been around for about 20 years.
02:42But Konstantinos beats them all.
02:45He's been working with pastries for 46 years.
02:48He moved to the U.S. from Greece in 1978,
02:53built his own push cart from scratch,
02:55and started selling donuts and coffee out of it
02:57to earn a living.
02:58It was the best job I ever did.
03:01I go there at 4 o'clock in the morning.
03:03We park up and live by 11, 11.30,
03:07with a box full of money.
03:10Business was so good, he built 12 carts by 1990
03:13and hired 20 employees to run them.
03:16In 1997, he opened this central food commissary
03:19for the city's vendors.
03:21There are nearly a hundred of these kitchens
03:23across New York City,
03:24tailored to different types of food,
03:26like breakfast, halal dishes, and nuts.
03:29Supplying the push carts,
03:31you could be in a hundred locations at the same time.
03:34Over the years, he's continued to expand his clientele
03:37to restaurants, hotels,
03:39and even the New York Police Department.
03:41Bakers slide trays of sliced dough onto a rack,
03:44and roll them into the proofer to rise.
03:49After proofing the dough for roughly 30 minutes,
03:54bakers dunk the donuts into the fryer.
03:59Throughout the fillings, dipping, sprinkling, and powdering,
04:09bakers keep a close eye on the temperature.
04:12Too hot makes the froster melt off the doughnut.
04:15Georgios Mikulidis is the general manager of Pandora Bakery.
04:19Too cold makes the dough tougher to eat.
04:23That's why they use fans instead of AC.
04:29Finally, workers assemble the doughnuts for pickup.
04:32Most of Constantino's customers have been buying from him
04:35for over a decade.
04:37So Pandora knows their orders by heart.
04:40There is no invoices laying on the boxes,
04:43so they know these orders inside their heads.
04:47Workers stack the leftover doughnuts on this rack
04:50and sell them to commuters for a dollar each.
04:53Take a dozen small ones.
04:54Mark Taylor works at a nearby hospital
04:56and stopped in to grab one before his shift.
04:59This is arguably the best doughnut in New York City.
05:02They come at 10 o'clock in the morning
05:03and they're fresh up out of the grease,
05:04and they are amazing.
05:09Starting at 1 a.m., food cart vendors pull up to Pandora
05:12to stock up for the day.
05:14It's a lot of work.
05:15You have to set up in the morning.
05:17Somebody has to move their truck.
05:19Natty Gonzalez gets up at 3.30 in the morning,
05:23five days a week,
05:24so she can set up before the breakfast rush starts at 6.
05:28Three dozen pastries are already waiting for her.
05:34She also picks up some extra ingredients,
05:36like flour and oil,
05:37for her freshly cooked breakfast items.
05:40Natty pays wholesale prices,
05:4260 cents per medium doughnut,
05:44and sells them for $1.75.
05:51She sets up shop at Broadway and 87th
05:53on the west side of Manhattan.
05:55Thank you. Have a nice weekend.
05:57A spot she's held for a year.
06:01She immigrated from Mexico in 2002
06:03and spent years at jobs that kept her on her feet,
06:06leading to back pain.
06:08Now I can sit here.
06:09I have my chair here.
06:10I can sit.
06:11Oh, we play music.
06:12Whatever we want to do here,
06:13but it's our business.
06:17She paid $31,000 to take over this cart.
06:20After learning the vendor in the spot was retiring,
06:22Natty runs it with her friend Carmen Flores,
06:26who she used to work with at a cafeteria.
06:28Together they created the menu
06:30and came up with the name for their cart,
06:32Las Reinas del Sabor,
06:33the queens of flavor.
06:35Queens because they run it together.
06:37I enjoy cooking.
06:38She enjoy to make the coffee.
06:40Some days we're happy,
06:42some days we're angry,
06:43so we're still together at home.
06:47And flavor because that's what Natty says
06:49separates her from the competition.
06:51Around 10 a.m., Natty starts heating things up,
06:54while Carmen prepares the salsa packets
06:55before the afternoon rush starts around noon.
06:59On good days, Natty and Carmen can make $1,200,
07:03but they spend over half their income on expenses,
07:06like cart storage, cleaning, and ingredients.
07:09We sacrifice a lot.
07:10We're coming back to the house.
07:11We're coming late, tired.
07:12We don't want to do anything.
07:14For more than a century,
07:15we've had a lot of money.
07:16We've had a lot of money.
07:17We don't want to do anything.
07:19For more than a century,
07:21food carts have helped New York City's immigrants
07:22start small businesses of their own.
07:27In the 1800s,
07:28millions of immigrants poured into New York City,
07:30many of them without money or job prospects.
07:34These immigrant groups,
07:35especially Eastern European Jews,
07:37have a history of peddling in the old country
07:39because of the anti-Semitic laws that made it difficult
07:43for Jews to work in different professions.
07:45That's Catherine Piccoli,
07:46who works at the New York City's Museum of Food and Drink.
07:49There was a real interest in this profession
07:52because you could make your own hours.
07:54Pineapple, grapefruit, orange, tomato.
07:58A pushcart offered a way to survive.
08:00It was cheap to buy, portable, and required no rent.
08:05By the end of the 1800s,
08:06around 5,000 New Yorkers were operating push carts.
08:10They sold grocery items like fruit, pickles, and fish,
08:13mostly to their own communities.
08:15You're walking the streets trying to sell your wares.
08:18So you have this really heavy wooden cart
08:21that you're balancing and walking around.
08:23But New York's narrow streets were getting packed,
08:26so city officials started to intervene.
08:29In the late 1800s, the city began requiring vendors
08:32to carry a license to legally sell food on the streets.
08:35To sort of count them, understand the work,
08:39be able to regulate the work,
08:41because so much of it was unregulated.
08:44Fiorello H. LaGuardia, do solemnly swear...
08:49In 1934, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia took office
08:52and launched a sweeping crackdown
08:54to clear vendors from the street.
08:56He called food carts antiquated and unclean.
08:59He's looking to, quote, modernize New York City.
09:03Part of this is because the World's Fair
09:05is going to be held in New York City in 1939.
09:08One of his solutions was to open 10 indoor markets
09:12and move vendors inside.
09:14Public markets that we still use today and love,
09:17like Essex Market, were part of this program
09:19that he started.
09:20But the indoor markets had more rules than the streets.
09:24A big one being that you had to be an American citizen.
09:27You couldn't hawk, you couldn't cry.
09:29Many street food vendors at the time had signature cries
09:33or calls to announce themselves, their location,
09:36what they were selling.
09:37The street cries of the food vendors
09:39would have been in many different languages.
09:41So outlying them in the public markets is also a way of Americanizing people
09:47and saying, you know, we can't have different languages here.
09:51The markets had limited space and required a stall fee.
09:55So many street vendors were pushed out of the trade.
09:58By the time LaGuardia ended his term,
10:00there were only 1,200 people selling food on the street,
10:03a 92% drop from before he took office.
10:07Pretty immediately, you have people across the city saying,
10:10you know, we're really nostalgic for selling food on the street
10:13because it really defines New York City.
10:15The 1965 Hart Seller Act opened U.S. immigration to regions beyond Europe,
10:20including Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
10:23Like the Jewish and Italian immigrants before them,
10:26many of these newcomers started with food carts,
10:29one of the most accessible ways to build a business.
10:34The diversity of New York City's food carts exploded, too.
10:38We see the shift begin to happen where most foods sold on the street
10:42are meant to be eaten on the street.
10:44There are hot dogs, there are halal plates.
10:47The stainless steel food carts we're familiar with today grew in popularity,
10:51offering more space and appliances to cook with.
10:55By the 1980s, there were about 12,000 carts,
10:58nearly as many as there had been in the 30s before Mayor LaGuardia's crackdown.
11:02Businesses and pedestrians complained that streets were getting overcrowded again.
11:07In 1983, Mayor Ed Koch imposed another limit,
11:10a cap of 3,000 permits certifying that a cart was legal.
11:14In 2021, the city agreed to raise the cap to nearly 7,500 permits over seven years.
11:20But that's still not enough to meet demand for the city's 20,000 mobile food vendors.
11:26Any food vendor to operate in a lawful way,
11:29they are usually required to have two documentations on them.
11:32One is a food vendor license that's for the individual themselves.
11:36And there is also a food vending permit that goes on the cart
11:40or the truck they are selling from.
11:42Mohamed Atzi is the head of the Street Vendor Project,
11:45a nonprofit advocating for street vendors' rights.
11:48The food vendor license is not a problem.
11:51It's very accessible.
11:52The biggest problem that we have is the food vending permit.
11:55People have been waiting 20 years, 25 years.
11:58There were actually more than 10,000 names on that waitlist.
12:02So right now, as we speak, the waiting list is closed.
12:05To avoid the waitlist, many vendors pay to rent a permit from someone who already has one,
12:10even if it means paying a higher price.
12:13A permit that costs $200 to obtain from the city and renew every two years
12:18will cost the vendor up to $25,000 in this underground market.
12:23This is what's happening with the vast majority of food cars and food trucks
12:26we see here in New York City.
12:30Some vendors caught in the system say they feel trapped by the high costs.
12:35It's a big loop.
12:38And the more I'm in here, the more I realize that my dad got stuck.
12:41Petey Sethopoulos has been working in food carts since 2013, when he was 18 years old.
12:47My grandpa started the hot dog cart business in like the 70s, 70s to 80s in Central Park.
12:52And then slowly my dad trickled into it.
12:54In 2023, Petey met a cart owner who was retiring and let him take over the permit.
12:59Thank God the guy was really nice and he only charged me like $8,000.
13:03Petey paid another $35,000 for the cart and this spot on 32nd and Park Avenue.
13:10It is like an imaginary log book.
13:12You don't really go where other people are making money because now you're being a leech.
13:15Now you're taking money off their plate.
13:17Even in prime locations, office attendance in New York City remains well below pre-pandemic levels,
13:23shrinking the morning rush of customers.
13:26Petey is also facing rising food and storage costs and growing competition.
13:31Fast food, DoorDash.
13:33You just pick up the crumbs to survive.
13:36Soaring costs have forced vendors to raise prices,
13:39a trend Mayor-elect Zoran Mondani called halalflation during his campaign.
13:44I lost half of my customer base when I raised my prices a quarter.
13:48Just one quarter.
13:49And because permits have to be renewed every two years, Petey has to pay up all over again.
13:54You just worked all year to save up some money and then you got to give this guy another $8,000 just to be able to work again.
14:00But some pay even more for a permit, only to get scammed.
14:04So if someone, say Sam, can rent me their permit and I can use it on my cart,
14:10there is no contract between me and Sam.
14:12Basically Sam is taking the cash under the table.
14:15The problem with that system is that there is a lot of exploitation that happens because Sam knows how much I need them.
14:22Vendors still pay because getting caught without a permit can lead to criminal charges and jeopardize their immigration status.
14:29They can confiscate your property, all the food and the cart, everything that you have.
14:36The NYPD has issued 918 criminal tickets for vending through July 15th, 2025, up 16% from the previous year.
14:45And even with a permit, vendors still face risks.
14:49There are so many rules that you have to follow as a food vendor in New York City.
14:53You cannot be in a bus stop, you cannot be on a taxi stand.
14:56You have to be 20 feet away from every building entrance.
14:59You have to be very close to the curb, like literally 18 inches.
15:02We have the health department, the sanitation police, the NYPD.
15:07All these different agencies can actually come to your business, perform an inspection.
15:13They can arrest you, they can give you a ticket, they can give you a $1,000 fine.
15:18As federal immigration raids increase nationwide, many vendors are afraid to risk working on the streets.
15:24The ones still operating say the pressure is wearing them down.
15:31And not only the tickets, it's the persecution, the stress.
15:36I'm informed of the pressure. And I have to take the pizza every day.
15:40If we want!
15:41Licencia sin permiso!
15:44Since December 2023, food vendors have taken to the streets, urging the city council to pass four reform bills.
15:51In 2025, the city council passed one of the proposed bills, ending criminal penalties for licensed vendors and reducing them for unlicensed ones.
16:00Vendors are still pushing for the rest of the package, which would create thousands of new permits and make it easier for vendors to get training and support.
16:08What are we waiting for?
16:11How many vendors are we waiting for them to be deported for the council to wake up and start doing something?
16:19A New York City council spokesperson told Business Insider that reforming the street vendor system is complicated.
16:25And they're trying to balance the needs of vendors, small businesses and neighborhoods while avoiding harsh enforcement.
16:32The New York City Health Department states that there's no delay in issuing mobile food vendor licenses or permits.
16:38And that it has released all applications it is legally required to.
16:42It also says inspectors regularly check the permitted street carts and trucks to promote food safety.
16:48With a new mayor taking the stage, New York City's street food and the people who built their lives around it enter a new chapter, with vendors watching closely.
16:58We deserve respect.
16:59We deserve respect.
17:00We are essential workers in this city.
17:03Behind each of the customers is not a cart of tamales.
17:08It's the responsibility of the family.
17:10We deserve respect.
17:11We should comply with our families.
17:15If we deserve respect!
17:17сожалению.
17:18And we are dependent on the Truman House on the work of theależy搬odel.
17:22and judgment of our families,
17:28who wants to toys together andABX sia.
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