During my Junior year of college, I participated in a group project for my Assessment and Evaluation course with two peers. We collected data and then analyzed the results for our request to bring food trucks into downtown San Luis Obispo.

1. Food Trucks
in
Downtown SLO
Ashley Lu, Taylor Driscoll, Connor King
March 11, 2016

2. Introduction
Agency Description/Background
Existing businesses that want to expand by using food trucks on the streets will go
through the San Luis Obispo Police Department. Having a food truck in a parking lot
requires the business to go through the Planning Department. If the business is located
within the city limits of San Luis Obispo, they can submit their application and fees to
the Community Development Department.
Purpose Statement
A surge of college-age people flood the bars and streets of downtown San Luis Obispo
every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night starting around 10 p.m. Some just want to
relax with friends; others test the limits of the law and their bodies. When they get to the
point of exceeding their limits, assistance needs to be available. Eating food allows the
person to slow down the immense amount of drinking and hopefully reverse the
negative consequences that may derive from drinking more than the body can handle.
Not only would allowing food trucks in downtown San Luis Obispo during these peak
hours provide safety to students and the community, but it would profit local businesses
as well. One of the most common laws broken downtown are public intoxication, with
food trucks, people are less likely to wander around the streets looking for a ride,
looking for food, etc.
Research Question(s)
Qualitative
1. How many nights out of the week do you go to the bars in Downtown SLO?
2. Are you satisfied with the food availability between 10PM to 2AM downtown?
3. If you were to leave a bar after midnight, how likely are you to purchase food?
4. Would you be more likely to purchase food if there were more options readily
available/closer to the bars between the hours of 10PM and 2AM?
5. The vast majority of restaurants in downtown SLO stop serving food at 10PM.
Would you be interested in having the option to purchase food while downtown at
the bars during the weekends from 10PM-2AM?
6. How old are you?
7. What do you identify yourself as?
8. Do you eat before drinking?
9. How often do you eat after consuming alcohol?
10.How do you get home from downtown?
11.What kind of food do you enjoy the most after consuming alcohol?
12.How close do you live to downtown?

3. 13. How much would you be willing to pay for a late night meal downtown between
10PM and 2AM?
Quantitative
1. Tell me about your experiences from the last time you were at the bars
downtown in SLO.
1. How would you feel if there were food trucks provided in downtown SLO during
peak, late night hours near the bars?
2. If there were food trucks Downtown SLO, would you spend money on their food?
Why or why not?
3. What do you believe the primary cause for alcohol poisoning is among students
downtown?
4. How much money do you typically spend on food when eating in Downtown
SLO?
5. What reasons do you think food trucks Downtown SLO late at night, near the
bars, would be beneficial?
6. Tell me about your experiences finding food after leaving the bars at night.
7. Have you experienced purchasing food from a food truck before? If so, tell me
about the experience you had eating at a food truck.
8. How do you typically get home from the bars?
9. Do you like to go to different bars throughout the night or are you more likely to
stay at one or two the entire night?
Methods
Subjects and Sampling Method
The population that this survey pertains to is everyone who attends the bars in
downtown SLO. This includes all genders and ages. All people in the population are
over the age of 21. A large subset of this population is Cal Poly students. The survey is
targeted to those individuals aged 21+ who go downtown to the bars during peak late
night hours. The research team used convenience sampling in order to conduct our
research. They will be choosing respondents that are close to them in relationship, and
who also possess the characteristics of going downtown during late night hours and
going to the bars.
Issues in data collection and Sample vs. Population
At first, the researchers came across the issue of only getting a vast majority of female
respondents. They saw this was a problem because it wouldn’t have given us an
accurate representation sample of our population. However, by providing the survey to
a wider audience, the research team received a vast majority of male respondents,

4. which evened out the percentages of female and male respondents. From the end
results, the sample did not differ from the general population by much, if at all.
Quantitative Data gathering
Method and Development
The research team used a survey to conduct quantitative research. This was most
appropriate since research involved using convenience sampling. The data can be
collected and analyzed fairly quickly. The results from the sample can be generalized to
the entire population if the response rate is high enough. Luckily, the response rate from
the survey was very high. They developed questions that pertained to the target
market’s experience & behaviors, attitudes/values/opinions, feelings, knowledge/skills,
and demographics. They were able to pilot the survey to a few students in our RPTA
360 class and made a few changes before sending out the survey to a greater
population.
Details about Data Collection
Our data came entirely through digital collection. One method was posting the survey
onto private sorority pages of our members and requesting that it be filled out. This
resulted in great numbers, however, it gave us only female responses. The research
team then posted the survey to the Cal Poly class of 2017 home page on Facebook and
requested specifically men, but encouraged anyone who attends the bars. This resulted
in overwhelming responses and balanced out our male to female ratio very nicely. The
survey collected so many responses in fact that people were getting cut off due to the
fact that they had to shut down access to the survey in order to analyze it.
Qualitative Data
Method
Semi-structured interviews were chosen as the best method of evaluation. This method
is the most appropriate because having a structured outline allows the research team to
get all the necessary information, while also giving them the freedom to follow up on
specific areas of interest. In addition, the research team believed that that a
conversational tone is the most effective in terms of gathering information from the
interviewee. This survey was piloted twice through the RPTA 360 class and some of the
questions were very repetitive so the research team took out those questions or
reworded them.

5. Sample
Since the research team decided to use convenience sampling as their primary way of
retrieving information, researchers recruited participants that were familiar with. This will
allow the respondents and interviewers to feel more comfortable during the interview
process, which allowed for more accurate and honest responses. They also looked for
people who have/had a lot of experiences going downtown to the bars and those who
felt comfortable about giving their honest answers.
Interviews Conducted
Interviews were conducted from the week of February 29th to March 4th. The team
interviewed six people for an hour each at coffee shops, the library, or a house. In
addition, there were three 15-minute individual interviews. The interviewers began the
interview by getting to know the interviewee and make them more comfortable. It is vital
that the interviewee feels comfortable so they give honest and valuable responses.
There was no formal guide for the interview. The interviewer would simply go off of the
questions the team had formulated and create conversation from them.
Results
Quantitative
Data was analyzed through excel. The research team found averages, standard
deviations, created pivot tables, bar graphs, and much more. Some key questions to
look at involved gender, satisfaction, and the need for the availability of food downtown
SLO on the weekends at late hours. They chose to look at these questions in order to
understand what the target market has and what they want. It is important to look at
gender to ensure that there will be a large enough target market as all genders were
interested in the proposal.
The research team barely had issues with data collector or analysis mainly because
they had used a convenience sampling. After 68 responses, only 18% of the responses
came from males. Two of the team members had sent the survey to their sororities,
which made the ratio of males to females so drastic. This was not an accurate
representation of the population so the research team made efforts to get more males to
complete the survey. By reaching out to the broader Cal Poly students and targeting
males, they obtained a sample size of 182 responses with 40.66% males.
Based on the positive results, it would be beneficial to San Luis Obispo if food trucks
were to be permitted Downtown SLO between 10PM and 2AM from Thursday through
Saturday. Several important findings support this idea.
First, the question, “If you were to leave a bar after midnight, how likely are you to
purchase food?” was responded on a (not likely) 1 → 5 (very likely) likert scale. The

6. average response was a 3.64 with a standard deviation of .71. This is a relatively small
standard deviation as 68% of the sample was between 2.93 and 4.35. This shows that
this sample is very interested in purchasing food after they leave a bar after midnight.
Next, for the question “Would you be more likely to purchase food if there were more
options readily available/closer to the bars between the hours of 10PM and 2AM, 164
students out of the 182 responses states that they would either 4, be very likely, or 5, be
extremely likely, to do so.
The table below counts how many times respondents went out in a given week. The
majority of respondents said they went out twice a week. Only ten responded that they
went out zero times. In response to the second table, 172/182 respondents stated that
they went downtown to the bars in SLO at least once a week. This demonstrates that
there is a good market for food trucks in downtown SLO since all of these respondents
are part of the target market as they are 21 and older and visit the bars.
The graph below is the satisfaction with food availability in downtown SLO between the
hours of 10PM and 2AM for males and females. The average satisfaction for all
genders was a 1.81 with a standard deviation of 1.41. Data table number 3
demonstrates that males, females, and a transgender are dissatisfied with the food
availability late night downtown on the weekends. There were almost twice as many
females who stated they were a 1 on the scale of 5, however there are more females in
our sample. Out of the 187 respondents, no one picked a 4 and only 4 people picked a
5, demonstrating that students are not satisfied with their options during these peak
hours.

7. Gender and Satisfaction with Food Availability between 10PM and 2AM downtown
Below is a correlation matrix. The only correlation that seems fairly strong is a positive
correlation of 0.60 between “Would you be interested in having the option purchase
food?” and “Would you be more likely to purchase food if there were more options
readily available. Closer to the bars between the hours of 10pm-2am?”. This means that
the more interested an individual is in having the option to purchase food downtown, the
more they’ll be willing to purchase food that was closer to buy food downtown. On the
other hand, age didn’t have any strong correlations with any of the questions asked.

8. Qualitative
The research team analyzed the data from the interviews by looking back at their notes
and determining key themes.
Major themes
Open Codes (all) Axial Codes (themes, categories)
Difficulty finding sober driver Convenience and accessibility
Want Quality of Life
Uber Means of getting home
Hungry Satisfying Needs
Taco Bell Satisfying Needs
Friends Maintaining Relationships
Social Social Norms
Home Convenience and accessibility
Convenience Cherishing time and accessibility
Lack of Food Satisfying Needs
While collecting data, the research team put the survey on the Cal Poly SLO Class of
2017 Facebook wall. Below is a screenshot of the interest and responses students
shared. By the amount of responses the survey gathered after the research team had
posted this on the wall demonstrates student’s interest in food trucks being available.

9. Conclusions & Recommendations
The purpose of this survey was to collect and analyze data to determine the market for
the possible implementation of food trucks in downtown SLO from Thursday through
Saturday from 10PM to 2AM. The research team observed a surge of college-aged
people flood the bars and streets of downtown San Luis Obispo every Thursday, Friday
and Saturday. The research team thought that not only would allowing food trucks in
downtown San Luis Obispo during these peak hours provide safety to students and the
community, but would profit local businesses as well.
Infer from Data
From the data one can infer that there is a want and need for food to be more available
and convenient during the peak hours downtown on the weekends in SLO. There are
only a few places in SLO that are open past 10pm and there is clearly a need for more
options.

10. Action Steps
The city of San Luis Obispo should allow food trucks to be in the downtown area near
bars between the hours of 10pm and 2am during the weekends. Current businesses in
SLO should obtain permits through the city.
Limitations
Evaluations and research results can be limited or impacted by external or
uncontrollable circumstances.
Impacted Data
When the surveys were first sent out, it reached a lot of female audiences, therefore, a
vast majority of our respondents were females. It was hard getting the percent of males
to match up with the number of females who already responded. However, they
gathered a lot of male respondents from posting on a larger social media platform.
This impacted our data collection because it wasn’t representative of our target
population. There needed a more representative group of our target market in order to
generalize our results to the greater population. Because of this, they had to frantically
post the survey onto a more representative platform and hope that respondents of all
genders would take the time to complete it.
Avoided in Future
This can be avoided in the future by posting our survey to several different platforms at
the start of our research process. Therefore, there will be a lot of traffic coming into our
survey from a variety of people at random. Since our main problem was initially posting
on page that only consisted of girls, the research team now knows that if they were
going to do that, they need to also either post the survey to a page consisting of all
males or solely post on a page with all genders.
Summary
This evaluation has reached a conclusion that there is in fact a large demand for food
trucks downtown during peak drinking hours. The current dilemma facing college
students and other bar goers is the lack of accessibility to food late at night. Not only is
this an inconvenience, it is a safety concern. Eating food before, during and after
drinking significantly reduces the risk of irrational behavior and/or alcohol poisoning. In
addition to the safety factors, the city of San Luis Obispo and local business owners are
missing out big on a fantastic business opportunity. As mentioned before, the demand is
there! Although there are hoops and ladders, which must be jumped through in order to
permit commercial food trucks on city streets at night, it is worthwhile.

11. We believe that if we had not only used convenience sampling as our method of data
collection, we would have acquired a much more useful and insightful guide to the
potential of the implementation of food trucks. We could have reached out to older bar
goers, local business owners and city officials to really obtain insight from all
stakeholders involved.
As mentioned above, I would expand our sample size. For business owners and city
officials I believe a face-to-face interview would be the most beneficial. In this case it
would be important to tailor the questions specifically to him or her rather than asking
the same questions that students received.
Appendix

15. Thank you for taking the time to complete our survey. First, we want to clarify that you
are over the age of 21 and attend bars in Downtown SLO. Our intention is to bring food
trucks to downtown SLO during peak, late night hours during the weekend. Your input
and responses will allow us to evaluate the market for food trucks. Most food
establishments downtown close around 9, leaving night goers without many food
options. We would love to hear your opinion on this topic and discuss your experience
and opinions.
1. Tell me about your experiences from the last time you were at the bars
downtown in SLO.
2. How would you feel if there were food trucks provided in downtown SLO during
peak, late night hours near the bars?
3. If there were food trucks Downtown SLO, would you spend money on their food?
Why or why not?
4. What do you believe the primary cause for alcohol poisoning is among students
downtown?
5. How much money do you typically spend on food when eating in Downtown
SLO?
6. What reasons do you think food trucks Downtown SLO late at night, near the
bars, would be beneficial?
7. Tell me about your experiences finding food after leaving the bars at night.
8. Have you experienced purchasing food from a food truck before? If so, tell me
about the experience you had eating at a food truck.
9. How do you typically get home from the bars?
10.Do you like to go to different bars throughout the night or are you more likely to
stay at one or two the entire night?