San Marcos, CA Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Vending Zones (2026)

Table 20.230-2 of the San Marcos Zoning Ordinance, the Industrial District Permitted Uses table governing the Light Industrial (L-I), Business Park (B-P), Industrial (I) and Industrial 2 (I-2) zones, lists "Catering, Food Truck" as a distinct land use from plain "Catering." While ordinary catering is a permitted use in L-I, I and I-2, the food-truck-specific classification carries a "- - -" (not allowed) designation in L-I, B-P and I-2, and is marked "P" (permitted by right, subject to the standard permit process in Chapter 20.500) in only the Industrial (I) zone.

Under Section 20.230.040(D), a use that isn't specifically listed for a zone is prohibited there unless the Director makes a similar-use finding, so a food truck catering business has no by-right path into San Marcos's other three industrial zone types. The table's Additional Use Regulations column cross-references Section 20.400.230 (Vehicle Storage) for every zone where the use appears, and that section requires food and catering trucks, numbering one or more, to be stored in completely enclosed structures or screened from public view whenever they are kept outdoors on the site, alongside vehicles being repaired or serviced.

Section 20.400.230 also bars outdoor storage of any non-operational vehicle and prohibits parking a vehicle anywhere on private property other than an established parking lot, facility, or driveway leading to parking. Separately, the parking-requirement table for General Retail Uses lists "Catering, Food Truck" parking as governed "per issued food facility permit requirements," tying the zoning classification back to the health permit issued for the mobile unit itself. Day-to-day roadside food truck sales and health permitting are handled instead through the County retail food code that San Marcos adopts by reference in Chapter 8.04, Article V.