Photo by Sandy Choi

Let’s be honest—most of the food options on and around the National Mall aren’t particularly good, affordable or easy to find. One senior D.C. official would like to see that change.

The D.C. Examiner reports that Harriet Tregoning, the director of the D.C. Office of Planning, wants the District’s food trucks to be able to sell their wares on the National Mall:

“Food trucks are an innovation in the District that weren’t in existence even two years ago,” Tregoning told The Washington Examiner. “I would encourage [having] them — rather than looking at a revised, long-standing Mallwide concessions agreement — to give visitors more variety and more flexibility.”

Tregoning envisions a food pavilion of sorts where trucks can park on Seventh Street during lunchtime and more benches and tables could be added to that area of the Mall. Although it’s illegal to conduct financial transactions on park service property, Seventh Street is owned by the District and Tregoning said an easement could be granted for the sidewalk, which is park service property.

The park service isn’t shooting down the idea, although it’s not yet embracing food trucks on a daily basis. National Mall Superintendent Bob Vogel told the National Capital Planning Commission last week that the new plan for the Mall, which is in the process of being approved by the commission, does include concessions improvements. In it, “mobile food services can be on location for key events,” he said.

If the idea ever comes to pass, it would represent a huge leap forward for the increasingly popular mobile food vendors. It would also parallel advances for food trucks in the city itself—new rules that would give the trucks more flexibility and predictability in their daily operations on D.C. streets are moving forward, and a bill that would force the trucks to pay sales taxes recently made it through a D.C. Council committee.