Cedar Rapids, IA Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Vending Zones (2026)

Section 42A.11(b) bars a mobile food vending unit or food stand from operating in the public right-of-way within 100 feet of an open restaurant's primary entrance, measured as a 100-foot buffer from the center point of that entrance, during the hours a like restaurant is open, between 6:30 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. A restaurant owner can waive the buffer by giving the Office of the City Clerk a written statement, which the Clerk then copies to the food truck, and the food truck must keep that waiver on hand and displayed while operating in the right-of-way. Operating in the right-of-way at all first requires the mobile food vendor license issued under Chapter 42A, per § 42A.11(a), and § 42A.11(c) bars food stands and food carts from setting up in any on-street parking space in the right-of-way.

Public parks and city golf courses carry their own vending zones under § 42A.12: a vendor cannot operate in a parking lot adjacent to or with direct access to an open concession stand, must stick to hard-surfaced areas rather than roadways or parking-lot drive aisles, and must observe the park's own posted hours of operation. These buffer and zone rules stack on the general placement bans in § 42A.10(b), which forbid vending in a public alley, within three feet of a fire hydrant or ten feet of a building entrance, from a handicap-designated parking space, or within state or federal right-of-way, and which limit sales to pedestrians rather than people inside parked cars.