Orlando Opinions Podcast seeks to offer a new way of looking at how new retail, restaurant and residential projects affect Orlando locals. The 5-minute show is scripted, fast paced and full of sass thanks to host by Mark Baratelli, Editor of Orlando's longest-running local indie news website, thedailycity.com. The episodes are released every Sunday. Orlando Opinions is a production of PFT Media.
Transcript of Episode 20:
For years Tasty Takeover, Orlando's original weekly food truck event, took place across two separate rear parking lots in The Milk District: a larger lot behind 2428-2434 E. Robinson St and a smaller one behind 2424 E Robinson St. The lots were connected by a pass-through. They regularly hosted 13 trucks.
Starting Tuesday January 9th, Tasty Takeover moves to the smaller lot and go from from 13 to 10 trucks and a new event called "Tuesday Food Trucks" run by Berio Enterprises LLC will take over the larger lot with an as-yet-undisclosed number of trucks. The lots are next door to each other and both events will run every Tuesday 6-10pm.
The addition of "Tuesday Food Trucks" will give The Milk District two food truck nights running on the same day of the week at the same time of day.
Also, just one mile away are two other food truck events at Orlando Fashion Square Mall: The Daily City's Food Truck Bazaar has 10-15 trucks once a month on 2nd Sundays 6-9pm and Kona Food Truck Luau has 10-15 trucks once a month on 3rd Saturdays 6-9pm.
All 4 food truck events take place within a mile of each other so The Daily City is calling this area the Street Food District.
Honestly, I’ve heard attendance has dwindled lately at Tasty Takeover as it also has at Food Truck Bazaar. Maybe the days of food truck events are numbered. We are sure to find out in 2018. Perhaps the area is over-saturated. We’ll find out in 2018…
According to Wall Street Journal, NPD Group says tacos are one of the top five foods ordered at restaurants in the US. The owners of KASA must have been paying attendtion because they’re kicking their KASA concept out and replacing with… a taco restaurant! The name is Chela Tequila and Tacos and will launch the newall-Mexican menu January 23rd.
KASA isn’t the only restaurant heeding the call of the taco. The over abundance of taco restaurants made Orlando Weekly's "Top 10 Orlando Food Trends We Hope Stay Behind" for 2018. The writer of that piece said,"Restaurateurs responded to Orlandoans’ cries for “better Mexican food!” with approximately 15,000 new Mexican restaurants..." Here's one more!
For years Tasty Takeover, Orlando's original weekly food truck event, took place across two separate rear parking lots in The Milk District: a larger lot behind 2428-2434 E. Robinson St and a smaller one behind 2424 E Robinson St. The lots were connected by a pass-through. They regularly hosted 13 trucks.
Starting Tuesday January 9th, Tasty Takeover moves to the smaller lot and go from from 13 to 10 trucks and a new event called "Tuesday Food Trucks" run by Berio Enterprises LLC will take over the larger lot with an as-yet-undisclosed number of trucks. The lots are next door to each other and both events will run every Tuesday 6-10pm.
The addition of "Tuesday Food Trucks" will give The Milk District two food truck nights running on the same day of the week at the same time of day.
Also, just one mile away are two other food truck events at Orlando Fashion Square Mall: The Daily City's Food Truck Bazaar has 10-15 trucks once a month on 2nd Sundays 6-9pm and Kona Food Truck Luau has 10-15 trucks once a month on 3rd Saturdays 6-9pm.
All 4 food truck events take place within a mile of each other so The Daily City is calling this area the Street Food District.
Honestly, I’ve heard attendance has dwindled lately at Tasty Takeover as it also has at Food Truck Bazaar. Maybe the days of food truck events are numbered. We are sure to find out in 2018. Perhaps the area is over-saturated. We’ll find out in 2018…
According to Wall Street Journal, NPD Group says tacos are one of the top five foods ordered at restaurants in the US. The owners of KASA must have been paying attendtion because they’re kicking their KASA concept out and replacing with… a taco restaurant! The name is Chela Tequila and Tacos and will launch the newall-Mexican menu January 23rd.
KASA isn’t the only restaurant heeding the call of the taco. The over abundance of taco restaurants made Orlando Weekly's "Top 10 Orlando Food Trends We Hope Stay Behind" for 2018. The writer of that piece said,"Restaurateurs responded to Orlandoans’ cries for “better Mexican food!” with approximately 15,000 new Mexican restaurants..." Here's one more!
Crate and Barrel is closing inside Mall at Millenia. I didn’t care either right? Cuz I’m a man and the only reason I’d ever need a $350 Le Crousset sauce pan is to slap my dick on because thats what men do, you pussy fucks! Well apparently people do care about the closing of Crate and Barrel because we taped a tongue in cheek sad video walk thru of the 99% empty store and people’s comments were… sad!. Some locals really like this store and are sad to see it leave. Also, a couple employees said the closing was announced to them a week before Christmas. Now that is some sad shit right there we never thought about. We were too busy dick slappin’ water goblets in the tableware section to care. Watch the video on our Facebook page at facebook slash the daily city.
The U.S. Department of Justice awarded Orange County $3,125,000 to hire 25 full-time, sworn, career law enforcement officers over the three-year grant period ending October 31, 2020. The county must match that award with $3,409,749 comign from the Orange County Sheriffs Office.
The 25 officers will be assigned to three departments:
The maximum reimbursement for each officer's salary and fringe benefits is $125,000.
And finally, get your hankies ready. On the blog I shared the top 10 clicked-on stories of 2017 and also shared my thoughts on the year and the history of The Daily City. I am going to read that now.
I am grateful for every click readers choose to give me. Bringing back this blog from the dead was a slow and steady, be happy with every click you get, write about what you want, write when you want... effort. Getting back into the routine of being 100% responsible for 100% of the content took a year. 2017 was a year of getting back on the horse.
The Daily City grew slowly in popularity 2007-2012. It won all the blog awards, I was invited to City of Orlando brainstorms and I was putting on special events like Orland's first pop up shop, pop up dinner, recurring U-Haul art show, Cardboard Art Festival, Taco Truck Taste Test and eventually the gigantically successful Food Truck Bazaar. I loved what I and many many others had created: this little brand that could do a blog and events.
And then I caused its downfall (1) I turned my attention to Food Truck Bazaar which by 2012 had turned into a legit real business and (2) I fired my writer. Bazaar started as a one-night event but I turned it into a 8-15 night a MONTH event. While the decision to focus on Bazaar was the adult thing to do (I was a poor and old-ish), it took my attention away from the blog which was my passion and how everything got started. My passion was the blog... and yet I screwed that up by firing the one person who was creating content for it.
Bazaar flourished and The Daily City died.
In February 2016 I announced I was closing the blog after 9 years in business. Orlando Sentinel wrote about the closing which shocked me because I felt it'd been dead a long time. At that point in 2016, The Daily City had just no relevance anymore. It was gone.
Then in 2017 I told myself to screw my 5-posts-a-day requirement and (1) write when I felt like it and (2) write about what I personally was interested in and (3) celebrate any clicks I got ever. If I got 50 clicks I would make myself say "Awesome!" These three things brought me back to life slowly over 2017.
I am so proud of myself for completing 714 posts on my own this year and I want to thank you for reading the site in 2017. I appreciate your readership.
The U.S. Department of Justice awarded Orange County $3,125,000 to hire 25 full-time, sworn, career law enforcement officers over the three-year grant period ending October 31, 2020. The county must match that award with $3,409,749 comign from the Orange County Sheriffs Office.
The 25 officers will be assigned to three departments:
- Problem Oriented Policing Squad ("a proactive enforcement plan promoting change in the community’s view of police response")
- SWAT
- And Homeland Security.
The maximum reimbursement for each officer's salary and fringe benefits is $125,000.
And finally, get your hankies ready. On the blog I shared the top 10 clicked-on stories of 2017 and also shared my thoughts on the year and the history of The Daily City. I am going to read that now.
I am grateful for every click readers choose to give me. Bringing back this blog from the dead was a slow and steady, be happy with every click you get, write about what you want, write when you want... effort. Getting back into the routine of being 100% responsible for 100% of the content took a year. 2017 was a year of getting back on the horse.
The Daily City grew slowly in popularity 2007-2012. It won all the blog awards, I was invited to City of Orlando brainstorms and I was putting on special events like Orland's first pop up shop, pop up dinner, recurring U-Haul art show, Cardboard Art Festival, Taco Truck Taste Test and eventually the gigantically successful Food Truck Bazaar. I loved what I and many many others had created: this little brand that could do a blog and events.
And then I caused its downfall (1) I turned my attention to Food Truck Bazaar which by 2012 had turned into a legit real business and (2) I fired my writer. Bazaar started as a one-night event but I turned it into a 8-15 night a MONTH event. While the decision to focus on Bazaar was the adult thing to do (I was a poor and old-ish), it took my attention away from the blog which was my passion and how everything got started. My passion was the blog... and yet I screwed that up by firing the one person who was creating content for it.
Bazaar flourished and The Daily City died.
In February 2016 I announced I was closing the blog after 9 years in business. Orlando Sentinel wrote about the closing which shocked me because I felt it'd been dead a long time. At that point in 2016, The Daily City had just no relevance anymore. It was gone.
Then in 2017 I told myself to screw my 5-posts-a-day requirement and (1) write when I felt like it and (2) write about what I personally was interested in and (3) celebrate any clicks I got ever. If I got 50 clicks I would make myself say "Awesome!" These three things brought me back to life slowly over 2017.
I am so proud of myself for completing 714 posts on my own this year and I want to thank you for reading the site in 2017. I appreciate your readership.