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I love that type of Italian food. However, I don't think I've ever seen a food truck anywhere in NC (besides at carnivals and fairs). That being said, I'm not sure how well one would do in that area.
I'd imagine that food trucks must undergo the same procedures as restaurants for serving hot and perishable foods.
I also grew up in eastern NC, near Goldsboro & Wilson. I now live in Durham, in the Triangle area of central NC. A lot of food trucks used to do OK serving construction sites. I also worked in a tobacco warehouse in Wilson where a food truck came every day. Food trucks also serve construction sites in the Triangle and some seem to do OK.
Most food trucks here do well to stick to basics like sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs, biscuits, coffee, sodas, fruit juices. Mexican food trucks also do well as a lot of Hispanics live & work here. I don't think high end Italian would sell as well from trucks. I would seldom buy it. I go to sit down places like Italian Pizzeria for subs or calzones. You would have to charge a higher price than most people are able to pay.
I'm not as familiar with area you are thinking of. I go to Wilmington beaches sometimes but really haven't done much business in town there. My brother used to live in Southport & I don't recall it having enough population to support more than a local cafe or 2. May have grown since he lived there.
Cities & counties vary widely on regulations. Durham generally allows trucks or carts only by operators who also have a brick & mortar location. "Let's kick the little guy down a little further before he gets up again."
OK I was born in eastern NC lived here until college moved away and am now back for now. I will type some info from a very blunt honest viewpoint of a native f the area who has been out and lived other places extensively for others looking to move here. Feel free to add.
Eastern NC is roughly defined as anything east of I95, that being said a huge difference from area to area there but first a few commonalities.
Very rural for the most part with pockets in smal communities and towns with a few larger cities(for purposes here anything over 20,ooo we will call a city.( I know not big but i is a cut off point). Once you leave a city it can be a 30-40 mile drive to get to another city and some of the smaller ones do not have much. Wilmington is the largest in eastern NC with a population of 150,000(including surrounding areas) give or take depending on the time of the year. After that is Greenville with roughly 80,000 and Jacksonville close behind. Other cities. Rocky Mount around 55,000, Wilson and Goldsboro around 40,000 give or take. Other smaller cities, New Bern 29000, Kinston 22000, Elizabeth City 18000 and Morehead City/Beaufort together around 15-20000. Rest are smaller towns and communities.
Honestly, the only ones I would consider living in and raising my family these days are in no particular order, Wilmington, Greenville (both college towns UNCW and ECU), Morehead City, Wilson and Goldsboro, also Swansboro which is just outside Jacksonville. And of course anywhere on the coast.
Jobs..... unemployment is pretty high in eastern NC. There are jobs out there but wages for the most part are lower here than other parts of the state. Most tend to be processing jobs, loads of turkey and hog processing. Tourism and education other main employers along with health care.
Weather. Winters for the most part are mild with the occasional cold spell. It hardly ever gets below freezing and stays for more than a day or so. That being said I have been in shorts and a tshirt on the beach in Jan. and I have been bundled and seen snow in the same place. Spring and fall are very very nice here, minus the pollen. Lots of that. Summer very hot very humid. Number one thing I hear from folks who locate, I knew it was hot but I had no idea, this is ridiculous. Summers here you can pretty much count on 90-100deg with 90-100% humidity. That is June through mid Sept. Sometimes it gets so hot you feel like your clothes are wet.
Coastal areas are incredibly busy in the summer. traffc along Emerald Isle, Wrightsville Beach and the Outer Banks can be a nightmare at times as most of it is 2 lane roads on the islands. That being said it is the beach. Fishing is great, surfing at times is good and it is in general a beautiful place.
Hurricanes, ehhh it is a part of it. Have a plan to put in action and head the warnings. trust me evacuating and not having anything major happen is far better than being stuck on the islands in a cat 3 or above. Gas pretty much like everywhere else atm, 3.80 and up close to 4 on the actual coast.
I could add more if you are curious ask. That is the lowdown on what it is like. There are perks as well. Outdoors, not so crowded most of the time, inexpensive property and taxes. But it is the bible belt.
I grew up in Pikeville, a small town north of Goldsboro. Have lived in Durham since 1981. You mostly hit it on the head. I'm sure you have the same conversations with out of staters as to definition of small town & city. I joust with people who call Goldsboro a small town. I tell them to ride through Pikeville to understand what a small town is, LOL. As a kid, we visited relatives in Charlotte every couple of years. May as well have been New York to us.
Yes, wages/salaries have tended to be low in eastern NC but traditionally jobs could at least be found. 70 to 80% of teens in my area worked summer jobs in tobacco harvesting. A lot of adults did too. Various other farm work was often available too. A lot of people didn't have much education or training so work like that kept them going. Easy to find and you could survive on it to some degree. Wilson was tobacco city and had 4 or 5 huge warehouses that hired a lot of people in season. I worked in 2 of them at times. Tobacco companies had operations there too & a few trucking companies mainly served the tobacco business. Fewer people are farming tobacco now and fewer still hire teens as they used to. Warehouses are gone, tobacco is now sold by contract to companies. Cost of living has generally been much lower too. I knew a man with a few duplex apts in Pikeville. He was getting about 1/2 what he could have gotten in Durham at the time; for a relatively nice apt.
Same with textile mills. Burlington Mills, Stevens & lots of smaller companies used to have cotton mills in nearly every town of any size. Fewer of them now. Western NC got hit pretty hard too on furniture. My BIL is among the few still working furniture in Hickory.
Higher paying jobs were harder to find but at least you could find something in most places if you didn't mind hard & dirty work. Some rather poor families were relatively stable, as parents did that sort of work and the kids too, after school & summers. I remember 1 poor kid in my class who got to where he had more pocket $ than most of us. He was a hard worker & did all he could. Earned all he could & spent carefully.
I would recommend Pikeville as a good retirement choice if one likes small towns. Goldsboro is 20 minutes. Wilson is 30 minutes or so. Pikeville is mostly quiet and friendly,with low crime rate.
I went to Greenville only a few times. I found it very cliqueish. Hard to mingle & meet people, as everyone had their friends already & didn't need anyone new. Wilson tended to be that way to some degree. In those days, the 70's, race was a bigger factor too. Fewer people mingled across racial lines. That is a lesser issue in most places today, as far as I have seen.
I LOVE Tarboro. It is one of the prettiest towns in the state. There are so many fine old houses. Most of them are beautifully restored, but there are still some that need work and I am inclined to move there and restore one of them. The downtown is nice and prosperous, unlike many of the smaller downtowns. The people are very friendly, too.
OK I was born in eastern NC lived here until college moved away and am now back for now. I will type some info from a very blunt honest viewpoint of a native f the area who has been out and lived other places extensively for others looking to move here. Feel free to add.
Eastern NC is roughly defined as anything east of I95, that being said a huge difference from area to area there but first a few commonalities.
Very rural for the most part with pockets in smal communities and towns with a few larger cities(for purposes here anything over 20,ooo we will call a city.( I know not big but i is a cut off point). Once you leave a city it can be a 30-40 mile drive to get to another city and some of the smaller ones do not have much. Wilmington is the largest in eastern NC with a population of 150,000(including surrounding areas) give or take depending on the time of the year. After that is Greenville with roughly 80,000 and Jacksonville close behind. Other cities. Rocky Mount around 55,000, Wilson and Goldsboro around 40,000 give or take. Other smaller cities, New Bern 29000, Kinston 22000, Elizabeth City 18000 and Morehead City/Beaufort together around 15-20000. Rest are smaller towns and communities.
Honestly, the only ones I would consider living in and raising my family these days are in no particular order, Wilmington, Greenville (both college towns UNCW and ECU), Morehead City, Wilson and Goldsboro, also Swansboro which is just outside Jacksonville. And of course anywhere on the coast.
Jobs..... unemployment is pretty high in eastern NC. There are jobs out there but wages for the most part are lower here than other parts of the state. Most tend to be processing jobs, loads of turkey and hog processing. Tourism and education other main employers along with health care.
Weather. Winters for the most part are mild with the occasional cold spell. It hardly ever gets below freezing and stays for more than a day or so. That being said I have been in shorts and a tshirt on the beach in Jan. and I have been bundled and seen snow in the same place. Spring and fall are very very nice here, minus the pollen. Lots of that. Summer very hot very humid. Number one thing I hear from folks who locate, I knew it was hot but I had no idea, this is ridiculous. Summers here you can pretty much count on 90-100deg with 90-100% humidity. That is June through mid Sept. Sometimes it gets so hot you feel like your clothes are wet.
Coastal areas are incredibly busy in the summer. traffc along Emerald Isle, Wrightsville Beach and the Outer Banks can be a nightmare at times as most of it is 2 lane roads on the islands. That being said it is the beach. Fishing is great, surfing at times is good and it is in general a beautiful place.
Hurricanes, ehhh it is a part of it. Have a plan to put in action and head the warnings. trust me evacuating and not having anything major happen is far better than being stuck on the islands in a cat 3 or above. Gas pretty much like everywhere else atm, 3.80 and up close to 4 on the actual coast.
I could add more if you are curious ask. That is the lowdown on what it is like. There are perks as well. Outdoors, not so crowded most of the time, inexpensive property and taxes. But it is the bible belt.
From someone trying to learn about the area, I just wanted to thank you for your very informative and objective post....very helpful.
Wilson NC population in 2011 was 49,251
Goldsboro NC was 36,503
Just wanted to clarify that since the thread starter rounded the population of those two towns but gave exact for others. Just thought that was a big difference.
Towns I would live in...no order...New Bern...Greenville, Wilson, Wilmington...The crystal coast is nice...but in the middle of no where. I would go crazy after a while.
What do you folks think of Elizabeth City and its immediate surroundings?
It is better to start your own thread for you question. Elizabeth City has been commented on many times for people transferring for Coast Guard Jobs. It is not a favorite area, but it is close to the Outer Banks. Examples:
It is better to start your own thread for you question. Elizabeth City has been commented on many times for people transferring for Coast Guard Jobs. It is not a favorite area, but it is close to the Outer Banks. Examples:
Thanks for the info. I'd seen those threads before. The most recent post is from August of last year. I was hoping for somewhat newer info and thought that a thread about Eastern North Carolina was a reasonable place to ask about Elizabeth City.
What do you folks think of Elizabeth City and its immediate surroundings?
They have been working on 158 through Camden Co for a couple of years now...I recently heard that the 158 widening would be going on for two more years and the Elizabeth City bridge (which is under construction) would take at least as long, maybe longer. So 2016 I guess is when that will be done.
The Mid-Currituck bridge to Corrolla is a stalled project...this would have opened up access from the beach to E-City area better...especially with the 158 widening through Camden being done. I think the Currituck and Camden areas are going to continue to get better as the economy improves...housing starts virtually stopped in Camden where it was going gangbusters for 10 years.
E-City has had some recent openings...a Chick Fil-A, a Firehouse Subs and a Panera Bread is almost finished...and there are lots of apartments going up near the 17 bypass exit (Wal-Mart area). Maybe E-City is turning a corner and will be discovered if it continues redevelopment projects. If you are looking at the E-City area, as always the waterfront is where its at. It has a nice waterfront that will drive the boat in E-City so to speak...but there is likely no major employers coming to town anytime soon...you have the Coast Guard station & ECSU....and can go north to the Tidewater area for the big stuff.
The Mid-Currituck bridge to Corrolla is a stalled project...this would have opened up access from the beach to E-City area better...especially with the 158 widening through Camden being done. I think the Currituck and Camden areas are going to continue to get better as the economy improves...housing starts virtually stopped in Camden where it was going gangbusters for 10 years. Is this true? we were told the bridge to Corolla was a definite and would start after 2014???
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