Oh yes indeed, I asked for hot dog controversy ^[1], and WaPo has tracked it down for me ^[2]. The guys who sell the junk food to the street vendors are outraged- appalled, even!- that the city might grant some vendor licenses to people who wouldn’t buy their Utz potato chips and crappy hot dogs.

It’s not that I don’t admire the owners of WG Food Distributors- they have the most American of stories: immigrant brothers who started out with an ice cream cart and built their business into one of the biggest vendor cart food distributors in the area. I congratulate them on their success, even.

So it’s with that in mind that I wonder why the Gulajan brothers don’t just view the SmartKafe/SmartKart competition as an opportunity to innovate and raise their game a little bit. Surely Gabe Klein and his partners aren’t the only people capable of bringing something other than hot dogs to the streets of DC. Capitalist pig that I am, I find few things more frustrating than when otherwise successful businesses rely on government regulation to protect their cash cows rather than innovating to accommodate a changing market.

So bring on the chicken shwarma, On the Fly. I’ll be checking out your Farragut North SmartKafe today. If anyone is convenient to their other locations ^[3] and wants to check them out, please add your comments.