An old joke holds that the way to make a small fortune in the
restaurant business is to start out with a large fortune.  The
business, indeed, is not for the faint of heart. It's labor
intensive; competition often is fierce; it swings with economic
conditions ranging from food costs to local unemployment rates.
There are taxes and rent, high employee turnover and a host of
other factors that make the enterprise daunting.  So it's
understandable that some restaurateurs in downtown Scranton
object to the presence of food trucks so near their restaurants.
Those mobile kitchens don't face most of the costs of
maintaining a location, particularly in terms of the web of
taxes and fees that conventional restaurants pay to local
governments.  But the situation is not intractable. The trucks,
like the restaurants, have a following, and consumer demand is a
big part of the equation.  The city government has a legitimate
interest in helping to maintain the viability of resident
businesses, but it also doesn't want to th