Joliet, IL Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Vending Zones (2026)

City Code § 13-1 splits mobile food sales on public property into two lanes. A "movable vehicle" (the code's term for ice cream trucks, push-carts and similar rigs, but not food trucks) cannot be used to sell food directly to the public on public property without a vendor business license. A "food truck," defined as a motorized or trailered vehicle-mounted unit that is readily movable without disassembly, cannot operate on public property for direct sales without a special event permit issued under chapter 5, article V.

Neither lane covers private-property vending, which the ordinance does not restrict by its own terms. Separately, § 13-128 requires any "mobile food dispenser" to obtain a permit and license under chapter 13 and to follow the health authority's sanitation rules, including single-service disposable utensils and a health-authority veto over selling certain potentially hazardous foods. Section 13-1 was last amended by Ord. No. 17808 in 2018, which added the food truck carve-out to a 1973 vending ordinance that originally covered only movable vehicles. Because the special event permit is tied to chapter 5's event-permitting process rather than a standing citywide vending-zone map, a food truck operator has to line up an approved special event before setting up on any street, park or other public right-of-way; there is no separate blanket downtown or park-district vending permit described in this chapter.