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Tamer Hassan manages four food carts near Times Square.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jos\u00e9 A. Alvarado Jr. for BI<\/p>\n
“Two years ago, we could sell $3 hot dogs at an 80-cent profit,” Hassan told me. “Now, if we sell them at $5, we still make 80 cents. That price is not about us, it’s not about me, it’s about the supply.” If his business earns $3,000 a day, he said he pockets about $200 after paying for food, drinks, utensils, propane, cart maintenance, insurance, staff wages, and other expenses.<\/p>\n
Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> took office with a vow to make the city more affordable, including proposals to lower the price of housing, childcare, and groceries. One of his earliest campaign slogans to gain social media traction was “make halal $8 again<\/a>.” The promise to reduce operating costs and increase permit availability aims to lower the roughly $10 price of a beloved New York street food: a platter of meat or falafel, rice, and signature sauces.<\/p>\n By one estimate, there are over 20,000 street vendors in New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 A. Alvarado Jr. for BI<\/p>\n Tamer Hassan said he had to raise prices at his orange halal truck last year, with menu items now above $10.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 A. Alvarado Jr. for BI<\/p>\n On an April Thursday, I asked more than a dozen street vendors<\/a> about the biggest challenges they face \u2014 and how the city can meaningfully address what the mayor dubbed as “halalflation.” Many of their troubles are largely outside the government’s reach. Overhead costs have become crushing. Declining tourism and work-from-home culture are eating into vendors’ earnings, making monthly income more unpredictable. New “congestion pricing<\/a>” tolls to enter central Manhattan also sting, as most of the vendors live and store their carts in outer boroughs. With eyewatering rents<\/a> and families to support, vendors said the squeeze isn’t just making carts less profitable, but harder to build a life around.<\/p>\n It’s not just about lowering the cost of hot dogs, it’s about getting more people to buy them.<\/p>\n Abdelhafeez Aly, 60, woke to his usual 1:45 a.m. alarm and picked up his cart near Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. By dawn, he had arranged frosting-covered doughnuts in the window and poured a fresh bag of ice into his orange juice cooler. Stocking the pastries and supplies costs at least $400 a day.<\/p>\n Abdelhafeez Aly has been running his cart in the Financial District since 1991.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 A. Alvarado Jr. for BI<\/p>\n “The price of everything is coming up: American cheese, meat, everything,” said Aly, who has run his Financial District cart since 1991. “If a restaurant around here has a sandwich, I have to make it for less. I want to raise prices, but there’s too much competition.” On a good day, he said he nets $10 an hour.<\/p>\n Food costs in US cities<\/a> have jumped by about 22% in the last five years, and the Iran war is sending gas prices over $4 a gallon. General inflation is also a stressor \u2014 vendors mentioned the creeping cost of coffee, dairy, ice, even paper coffee cups. While congestion pricing is working to reduce traffic and raise revenue for transit improvements, many vendors said the $9 daily toll is an additional hit to their stretched-thin budgets.<\/p>\n Steep inflation and a dwindling customer base are eating into vendors’ profits.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 A. Alvarado Jr. for BI<\/p>\n Zohran Mamdani is supporting affordability reforms for street vendors, but there are cost factors outside his control.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 A. Alvarado Jr. for BI<\/p>\n Mamdani’s “Street Vendor Reform Package” takes a swing at alleviating some food cart-specific expenses by creating a Division of Street Vendor Assistance within city government, and is supporting a bill that would allow vendors to place their carts two feet from the curb, limiting the number of tickets carts receive for being out of compliance. These could eventually alleviate vendors’ financial burden and boost their support within City Hall<\/a>. Still, progress is slow.<\/p>\n “It’s very hard,” Aly sighed. “But thank God I have a job.”<\/p>\n Ahemed Hassan, 30, was sprinkling rock salt on a batch of soft pretzels in front of the Museum of Natural History. He won’t sell them all \u2014 his once-reliable tourist crowd has been underwhelming lately.<\/p>\n Ahemed Hassan relies on the tourist crowds in front of the Museum of Natural History.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 A. Alvarado Jr. for BI<\/p>\n “It’s just a hard week, and usually there will be more people over the summer holiday,” he said. “Maybe someday I’ll make more money.”<\/p>\n Vendors said business really started to slide in the early 2020s, when the pandemic sent most white-collar office workers<\/a> home. Even as return-to-office policies bring employees back a few days a week, demand in previously reliable corporate hotspots isn’t what it once was.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the city saw a 3% tourism decline<\/a> from international travelers between spring 2024 and 2026, and the exorbitant cost of living means many residents are pinching pennies. A handful of regular customers isn’t enough to make up the difference.<\/p>\n A few vendors said they’re keeping prices the same to avoid losing customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 A. Alvarado Jr. for BI<\/p>\n Some vendors have adjusted their prices to meet rising overhead costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 A. Alvarado Jr. for BI<\/p>\n “I cannot raise the price for the regulars, because they come every day and expect the food to be $9 or $10,” one vendor told me. “If I raise it, they won’t want to come back.”<\/p>\n Asked about Mamdani’s $8 promise, most vendors responded with skepticism. Chiefly because solving their demand drought \u2014 bringing tourists and office workers back to halal hubs with money to spend \u2014 is outside the mayor’s purview. So are corporate RTO policies<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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