840: Mohamed Attia Sold Street Smoothies in Times Square. Now He Shapes Vending Policy.

This Is TASTE

Mohamed Attia shares his journey from selling street smoothies in Times Square to becoming managing director of the Street Vendor Project, a

Key takeaways

• The city's vending permit system has long been rigged against vendors, with tickets issued in minutes but permits taking up to 25 years to obtain.
• Street vending provides essential economic opportunity for immigrants and low-income workers, yet remains criminalized through outdated policies.

Main topics

• Street vending policy reform in New York City
• The personal journey of Mohamed Attia from vendor to advocate

Notable quotes

"If you sit up near the Hudson Yards... police officers will show up in a heartbeat. But if you want to get a license, you're going to wait 25 years."

Conclusion

Mohamed Attia's story illustrates how personal struggle can fuel system

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:07) If you sit up near the Hudson Yards and you're a few inches closer to the crosswalk, the police officers will show up in a heartbeat. It will take them like five minutes to show up, write you a ticket, and even seize your cart. But if you want to get a license, you're going to wait 25 years. So this is the stark difference in how the whole system is set up against the vendors to make them fail. Speaker 1 (0:28) This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard. Speaker 1 (0:35) Mohammed Atiyah spent nearly a decade running a food cart in Times Square before he became the person fighting to change the law that made carts like his semi-legal in the first place. As managing director of the Street Vendor Project, Atiyah helped lead the campaign that finally broke a New York City vending permit cap that had been frozen since 1979. On this episode, I speak with Mohammed about his path from vendor to advocate. And we go over so many of the great carts to visit in New York City. I hope you enjoy this episode. Speaker 1 (1:12) Mohamed Atia, welcome to This Is Taste. So great to meet you. Thank Speaker 2 (1:15) you. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. Speaker 1 (1:17) I'm excited to speak with you. You are an executive at the Street Vendor Project. You're running the show and you have a great story to tell. And I'm so happy that we can talk about some fundraising initiatives, some work you've done with city government here in New York City, and of course, all the great vendors of New York. Before we get to all of that, though. Where have you been dining out in New York as of late? Speaker 2 (1:43) It's Speaker 1 (1:44) a Speaker 2 (1:44) great question. So I've been having a few great spots, but the most recent is Jiang's Kitchen at Sam Mark's Place. It's a really great restaurant, kind of like halal Chinese cuisine, kind of like really, really spicy, but really delicious. So it's a real, yeah, it's a real gem and it's hidden there. Speaker 1 (2:04) I love St. Mark's right now in 2026. There's so many great spots. It's been like, you know, really, I mean, Bauhaus, of course, open Eddie Wong's place, but many other smaller places. It's always. exciting to walk down St. Mark's. Speaker 2 (2:17) Super, super. And you get the desserts, you get all the different spaces too. It's like amazing. Speaker 1 (2:22) When you're talking about street vendors, do you have like a rotation that you're on yourself as, I know you're visiting and we'll talk all about your work, but you're visiting these folks all the time. But do you have a favorites or anyone that you hit up? Speaker 2 (2:34) I do. And it always gets me in trouble. I always have to be cautious with who I'm promoting. But yeah, I have a lot of favorites, but honestly, like in downtown near my office, by Wall Street area. It is definitely Sam Falafel, the Biryani House, who was a Vendee's finalist, you know, back in, I think, 2010. A lot of amazing vendors out there who are just providing really delicious food that is also very affordable and, like, quick to get in downtown Manhattan. Another thing, it cannot be a secret, but Biryalandia, they are exploding all over the city. I would just be not so hungry and I would just drive by and I'm like, hey, Bidialandia, let me just pause. There is always room in your stomach for two tacos quickly. And you just grab it and you go. It's an amazing, yeah, it's an amazing Speaker 1 (3:23) experience to just be in the streets. Incredible, the expansion of Bidialandia. It's so cool. So cool to see. Super. Well, I want to ask you about the Street Vendor Project. You know, for our audience and particularly those not living in New York City, tell us a little bit about... the organization and yourself as the managing director, who you are working for and who you are helping with all the work that you're doing? Speaker 2 (3:46) Sure. So the Shivanter project was founded back in 2001 on this idea and concept of organizing the Shivanter community, making sure they have a voice in the city. At the time, a lot of the policies and rules that were made were basically so hostile and pretty much working against the vendors, banning them the right to exist in so many locations, you know, restricting so many streets, just wholesale restrictions. All these areas are like off limits to street vendors. And that destroyed the livelihood of thousands of people and, of course, impacted a lot of New Yorkers who rely on these vendors on their everyday, you know, work. So it's been like a really challenging journey to just see the organization starting very small in 2001, with just one person in the staff, with very small funding, all the way to 2012, when I learned about the organization. I was selling hot dogs in Times Square. It was a very cold day, I remember, and a couple of organizers stopped by and they said, we have an organization that we are working to build vendor power. And I was like, wow, we have power as vendors. That's very interesting. I want to be a part of that. You Speaker 1 (4:51) didn't realize it at that point. when that person came to your cart? Speaker 2 (4:55) I didn't know that this organization existed. I didn't really know a lot. I was still relatively new in the country. I came in 2008. So it was maybe my third, fourth year in the country. I was still newish to street vending. And I think it was 2011, 2012 when I heard. And then I started to ask, what kind of organization exists? What exactly do you do? And then I learned that there is a lot of community organizing happening. There is a lot of advocacy and defending our rights. even going above and beyond and trying to change the laws that have been in place for a very long time that basically prevented a lot of vendors from surviving in the city and thriving. Speaker 1 (5:31) Your story is amazing. I mean, you come to the States in 08 and you're working in a bodega and you were, you know, buying halal from a cart near your work and you strike up a conversation with the halal cart operator and you end up, from my research, and you can please fill me in, you know, Seeing it as a path for your own work. Talk about that conversation you had with the halal cart vendor and how you started that journey of opening your own cart and then working in Times Square for literally a decade. Speaker 2 (6:05) Sure. So very soon after I got to this country, I was working in East Harlem in 1691st. And I was going to the Islamic Center on 96th and 3rd Avenue almost every Friday to do the Friday prayer. And it was the first time I just walked to this masjid. And then I find this big car selling halal food. And there are some Arabic writings on it. And I was like, wow, do you speak Arabic? And he was like, yes, I do. Like, do you speak Alec? I'm from Egypt. Oh, where are you from? And then we start a conversation. And then I started buying food from him on a regular basis. And then down the road, I think it took us a few weeks to like start another conversation. And he was like, what do you do? Oh, where do you work? Oh, you work in a store. Like, are you getting paid minimum wage? And I was like, yes, it's about minimum wage. At the time it was $7.15. I Speaker 1 (6:52) was like Speaker 2 (6:52) back in the day. Speaker 1 (6:53) And New York, by the way, was very expensive then. Speaker 2 (6:56) It still was. It was pretty expensive. Like I couldn't even afford a studio of my own. I was like renting half a studio or like a small room with someone else. It was like a really challenging time for me to start. And then he was like, but what is the pathway for you? How are you going to grow in that store? are you going to be able to own your own store one day? And I was like, no, I don't see the pathway. It's going to take me like 50 years working for these people to be able to sell my own thing. And then he was like, what about street vending? There are so many Egyptians and so many immigrants in the streets who are selling food, who are now the bosses of their own. Like, look at me. I own this cart. I run this business. I do X, Y, and Z. And he kind of like sold the street vending concept to me. And I was like, yeah, let me just try this out. I could notice that it... comes with a lot of challenges, like you're dealing outside with the cold, with extreme weather, so many other challenges that I had to learn for myself as I started. But it was Speaker 1 (7:49) pretty much how I started. So you hear this from the guy and you do your research, you end up selling in Times Square. How do you end up in Times Square of all places to vend? And the second part is, you mentioned hot dogs, but I know that wasn't... the only thing you sold. Yeah, Speaker 2 (8:05) I started in Times Square selling hot dogs for somebody else. Somebody else had a cart, has been there for many years. And I was working for him to kind of like, you know, basically just get a percentage of the daily sales. And then down the road in a few years, I... I would think about 2014-ish when I started my own thing. And even when I got to start the business with my best friend who also happened to come from Egypt and also we were putting the money together, we found it virtually impossible for us to start a food vending business. that kind of like runs year round because of the underground market and the lack of permits that's when i really got hit by the fact and the reality that permits are not accessible i cannot get a permit under my name i have to navigate an underground market and pay up to 25 000 for a piece of paper that cost $200 to get from the city, basically. And that piece of paper makes my business legit. But at the end of the day, we decided to move forward with a different business plan, which was to get a smoothie cart. Speaker 1 (9:05) Now, the Speaker 2 (9:06) smoothie cart business is very different from any other food because it's Speaker 1 (9:10) a Speaker 2 (9:10) very seasonal business. You work only six months a year between April and October, and those permits were more affordable. They were going for like $5,000, $6,000 per season. And we started the business together and we started again in Sixth Avenue in Midtown, many locations. And then we came back in Times Square in the weekends. And I think... Business was pretty good. We were able to expand the business at some point. And then I got into halal food and other. Speaker 1 (9:34) You went to halal eventually. I Speaker 2 (9:35) went to halal eventually when the queue line started opening up new stations back in 2017 on the 2nd Avenue extension. I was like, wow, these are like really great new spots and there are no vendors there. So I just went there and I set up a halal food cart. along with another smoothie cart and business was going pretty well. Speaker 1 (9:55) I love that. So talk about setting up and finding your spots, because I think that's something that maybe our listeners don't know. I don't know myself. Like, it's not like you own the land or rent the land, right, in front of an establishment. How do you, how do the vendors like operate with locations in mind? Speaker 2 (10:12) Sure. So the first thing is kind of like the general rule is that it is first come first served, right? If you show up in the corner, you're going to... set up for the day but what i have learned and seen since i was working for other people that there is that respect code that exists within the vendor community everyone know that such and such works here for many years we're not going to just show up 10 minutes before they come and just take over their spot that rarely happens but also like understanding these dynamics in the streets kind of like shape what kind of business I get into. And that's why I got into the smoothie business because it was a lot easier to find a location with no smoothie vendors and just sit up there versus like selling halal or selling hot dogs. It's pretty much the same thing because they already exist in so many locations. identifying a spot that needs that kind of service and that kind of food can be really challenging. So Speaker 1 (11:04) there's like a little bit of a code of the streets. So if like we have out here on Broadway in 56, we have a taco cart that's there most weekdays and they've been there for years and it's like their spot. It's a respect from the other vendors in the area of Midtown who aren't going to pop up in front of our building that day. Is that how that kind of works? Speaker 2 (11:23) Pretty much. And even like when I started to show up with my smoothie cars in new locations and I know that there was no smoothie