On Saturday, the Institute for Justice hosted the first ever Chicago Mobile Food Symposium. They congregated people with various ties to the food truck industry: current food truck owners, aspiring truck owners, city legislators, lawyers, local restaurant owners and of course a bunch of food truck freaks.

There was a ton of information and great insights, but we’re going to give you a summary and key takeaways (and most re-tweeted quotes) from the event. If you want the deets, you can track back to April 14 in our Twitter feed (http://www.twitter.com/foodtruckfreak) and read our live tweets from the event.

For the first time, a huge group was gathered to hear the latest about food truck legislation but also to learn about the industry as a whole. The first panel was geared towards learning the story of food trucks on our national lanscape. John Gaber, professor at the University of Arkansas, pointed out that street vending is an older institution than the United States is. Sean Basinski (founder of the Street Vendor Project) pointed out the great need for quantitative data on the economic impact of street vending. Heather Shouse, author of Food Trucks, had the fortune of quitting her day job as a food writer to travel the country for a year and hear the stories of food truck owners nationwide, a reminder of the soul of the soul of this super niche community.

Read more at Food Truck Freak