STREET FOOD CITY

round white ceramic plate filled with waffle

STREET FOOD CITY

Can you imagine New York City without street food? For centuries, immigrant street food entrepreneurs have shaped the city’s flavor and culture, one hot dog and halal plate at a time.

Street Food City celebrates the city’s smallest food businesses, revealing the hidden world behind the iconic NYC food cart, recognizing the ways in which street food vendors and the foods they sold have shaped the city’s foodways, and tracing the challenges faced by street food entrepreneurs of the past to today’s fight for vendor rights.

To complement the exhibition, MOFAD is proud to partner with the renowned World Food Photography Awards sponsored by Bimi®, the leading global celebration of food photography, to showcase an exhibition of curated selection of images from past competitions, capturing vibrant and personal stories of street food vending across the world. These award-winning works - moving, witty, surprising - in their first-ever New York outing, will be displayed in the lobby of Empire Stores at 55 Water Street in May 2026, where MOFAD is located, offering a rare treat for visitors.

Purchase Tickets

Donate Today

We need your support! Every donation brings us closer to sharing this quintessential New York City story and honoring the people who have fed the city for generations. Donate today and help MOFAD tell the rich history of NYC street food. Donate here.

Exhibition supporters

Special thanks to Bloomberg Philanthropies and The Mellon Foundation for making this exhibition possible.

Museum of Food and Drink

55 Water Street, 2nd FlrBrooklyn, NY, 11201, United States

Opening December 6, 2025

Thursday - Sunday 12PM - 6PM

$10 - $17

Free for children below 5. General Admission ticket prices start from $10

Interested in bringing your class to MOFAD? Send an inquiry to schoolgroups@mofad.org

Museum of Food and Drink

55 Water Street, 2nd FlrBrooklyn, NY, 11201, United States

Opening December 6, 2025

Thursday - Sunday 12PM - 6PM

$10 - $17

Free for children below 5. General Admission ticket prices start from $10

Interested in bringing your class to MOFAD? Send an inquiry to schoolgroups@mofad.org

Highlights/Installation Images

Exhibition Advisors

Jennifer Berg

Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University; author of “From the Big Bagel to the Big Roti? The Evolution of New York City's Jewish Food Icons,” in Gastropolis: Food and New York City.

Eric Demby

Co-Founder, Brooklyn Flea and Smorgasburg

Jenny Dorsey

Professional chef, author, and speaker based in Singapore. Currently a Fulbright-National Geographic Research Scholar studying the impact of government policies on hawker centres.

John Gaber

Ph.D., AICP. Chair for the Department of City Planning and Real Estate Development at Clemson University. Dissertation and research at Columbia on street food vending in NYC.

Sarah Gordon

Professor Emeritus, John Hopkins University. Historian, curator, and teacher. Member of the research and curatorial team at the Statue of Liberty - Ellis Island Foundation and a faculty member of the CUNY School of Professional Studies Museum Studies program, where she teaches History and Theory of Museums and Contemporary Issues in Public History.

Andrew Gustafson

Vice President of Turnstile Tours, a tour company working with non-profit and cultural institutions around New York City to research, develop, and operate tours and public programs that highlight sites and stories that are underrepresented in the public record.

Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez

Deputy Director at the Street Vendor Project, bringing experience in policy development, restaurant kitchens, and community organizing for immigrant economic justice. She has previously held positions at NYC Small Business Services and the Community Service Society, and holds a Masters in International Affairs and Urban Social Policy from Columbia University.

Robert LaValva

Founder of the former New Amsterdam Market and designer/placemaking consultant with experience in sustainable infrastructure, food systems, and economic development.

Paul van Ravenstein and Monique Mulder

Co-Founders of MattMo creative branding agency in Amsterdam, NL and authors of the upcoming book, The Pickled City: The Story of New York Pickles.

Ariel D. Smith

Founder of The Food Truck Scholar and the host of its podcast of the same name. Dr. Smith’s research examines the role of the food truck industry in American Culture and African American entrepreneurs’ experiences and involvement in the mobile food industry specifically.

Ashley Rose Young

historian of the American Food History Project at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH); author of Nourishing Networks: The Public Culture of Food in New Orleans (OUP Press) and scholar of other urban food culture histories

Jessica Ann Vaughn - Curatorial Fellow

Jessica holds an MA from Boston University’s Gastronomy & Food Studies program, where she received multiple writing awards for her work analyzing food marketing, cultural narratives, and power structures. In 2024, she presented her research on Black food spaces and community at the AFHVS-ASFS Conference. She holds an undergraduate degree in Media, Culture, and Communications from New York University (NYU).

Catherine Piccoli - Curatorial Director

Catherine is a food historian and writer, whose work focuses on the intersection of food, culture, memory, and place. She brings this multidisciplinary approach to the Museum of Food and Drink. As curatorial director, she oversees the creation of MOFAD’s exhibitions and educational programming, and guides the operations team. Catherine was instrumental in the research, writing, and development of past major exhibitions, Flavor: Making It and Faking It and Chow: Making the Chinese American Restaurant, as well as gallery shows Feasts and Festivals, Knights of the Raj, and Highlights from the Collection.