TrendFlogging: Reinveting Street Meat > Tweet Mobbing for MexiKorean Taco Goodness

Long story short: Los Angeles restauranteur and entrepreneur Roy Choi started Kogi, a mobile Korean Taco business. At first people flashed more gang signs than money at him, but what started very slow as haute-cuisine in a cube van quickly spawned a cullinary monster.

Choi's secret recipe: a small, dedicated customer base + word of mouth + twitter = mucho dineros. (ammendum: Roy Choi was also featured on reality cooking show, Top Chef, so work minor celebrity status into the formula there)

By the time Newsweek caught up with him he was catering to crowds as strong as 600 and having L.A.'s Finest policing the crowds and traffic he spawns. All this takes is a single tweet announcing the expected arrival time of one of his trucks outside a busy L.A. bar.

Food trucks are nothing new, and taco trucks certainly aren't uncommon in L.A., but Choi has reinvented the model. By adapting social media, Kogi is essentially America's first "viral restaurant", and the real excitement comes from businessmen from as far away as Korea coming to America to study how the basic coffee truck model became an experiential phenomena, to one day unleash their own clone armies. I say let them try. The only real question is whether this will prove to be a localized fad like pop-up retail, or ground zero for a brand new business model for fast food in the future.

I'm happy to vote with my stomach.