Hackensack, NJ Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Sidewalk & Mobile Vending (2026)

Section 90-70 of the mobile food vendor ordinance, Article X of Chapter 90 (adopted 1-14-2020 by Ord. No. 42-2019), lays out where a mobile food vendor may operate in the city, and Subsection D addresses public streets and sidewalks directly: vendors are barred from serving food or beverages along any public street, including from a metered or nonmetered parking space, or on any public sidewalk or right-of-way. That prohibition is close to absolute; the ordinance gives the City Manager discretion to grant only limited exceptions on a case-by-case basis, and only when the public interest requires it.

This sits alongside the ordinance's other location rules: vending is otherwise confined to private commercial, industrial or office property inside an M-2 Zone (with a zoning permit and a 300-foot buffer from an existing restaurant, luncheonette or tavern), to City Manager-authorized special events such as a fair, festival or carnival capped at five days, or to an approved residential block party or catering arrangement. A vendor who parks and serves out of a truck along Main Street or another public sidewalk without a City Manager exception is operating in violation of Section 90-70D, not merely testing an unregulated gray area.