New Brunswick, NJ Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Vending Zones (2026)

Section 5.68.060 of the New Brunswick Municipal Code is the distance rule that decides where a food truck can sell in the City of New Brunswick. A mobile food vendor, defined in § 5.68.010 as a seller of prepared food from a motorized vehicle at a fixed location, cannot operate within one thousand feet of any permanent retail food establishment. The exception is narrow: vendors renting space at flea markets and at special functions approved by resolution of the city council are not governed by the requirement, which means the council itself, not the clerk, decides which events qualify.

The parking rules in § 5.68.110(B) tighten the picture. No mobile food vendor is permitted to park upon a public thoroughfare. Thoroughfares listed in Schedule B can be used with the appropriate permit, limited to the location and number of vehicles specified, but Schedule B is printed in the code as [Reserved], so the code itself names no on-street food truck spots. Special parking permits come from the New Brunswick Parking Authority, cannot be transferred from person to person or location to location, and the Parking Authority sets the fee. A prospective permittee is put on a waiting list, and the person at the top of the list is offered the permit when a place opens.

A truck that does not sit at a fixed location is a peddler under § 5.68.010, and the street bans in Schedule A of § 5.68.110 apply to peddlers. Schedule A closes the entire length of Albany Street, College Avenue, Easton Avenue, Georges Road, Union Street and U.S. Highway No. 1, along with stretches of George Street, Hamilton Street, Neilson Street and others. A peddler on private property needs the owner's permission and any necessary zoning permit, and on city-owned property needs a written council resolution and any necessary zoning permit. Section 5.68.070 also sets selling hours, including a special extension for licensed vendors operating exclusively on the Rutgers lot at the corner of Hamilton Street and College Avenue.