Metro Atlanta’s First Vegan and Vegetarian Food Truck Park Is Opening in Jonesboro

Atlanta Food Truck Park, now Veganish ATL, reopens in Jonesboro this weekend after closing on Howell Mill Road at the end of 2021 to make way for a new mixed-use development planned for the site.

Veganish ATL is currently metro Atlanta’s only vegan and vegetarian food truck park. Some pescatarian food businesses will also be on site.

Located in a former mulch yard on Tara Boulevard, Veganish ATL opens for limited afternoon hours Saturday, May 14, and Saturday, May 21, with a grand opening celebration taking place Memorial Day weekend. As in years past, the holiday weekend at the food truck park features a Caribbean theme with live music and drinks.

Tan Bowers opened Atlanta Food Truck Park in 2012 on a vacant lot at I-75 and Howell Mill Road. The park offered a daily rotation of food trucks, outdoor seating, and games as well as an occasional weekend farmers market.

In 2019, Bowers launched her first Veganish ATL event, hosting a number of vegan and vegetarian food trucks and mobile kitchens at the Howell Mill food truck park. Bowers says adding pescatarian businesses to the Jonesboro location allows it to be more inclusive by opening the park to more people, many of whom choose to go pescatarian first before fully committing to veganism.

Bowers spent months cleaning up the Tara Boulevard site in preparation for the reopening of the food truck park in Jonesboro, including regrading the property, installing electricity, landscaping, and setting up seating areas.

For Bowers, the move to Jonesboro is as much a leap of faith as it is a desire to offer more vegan and vegetarian food options on the south side of Atlanta.

A longtime advocate for the food truck community, Bowers often assists food truck operators with navigating state, county, and city laws and the tricky process to register mobile kitchens and pass health inspections in Georgia. That advocacy work continued with the opening of Veganish ATL in Jonesboro, where Bowers and the city waded into previously unexplored territory there to develop a permitting process, fees, and paperwork necessary to operate food trucks within city limits.

Last week, Governor Brian Kemp signed House Bill 1443 into law, allowing mobile food businesses and food trucks with active permits to operate in multiple Georgia counties under a single permit.

As of January 1, 2023, food truck operators will only need to permit within the county the business is currently registered under, with other jurisdictions verifying a food truck’s paperwork and permits through the Georgia Department of Health. Counties and cities may still conduct separate health inspections for a nominal fee.

8271 Tara Boulevard, Jonesboro.

Limited opening, May 14 and May 21, 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. Grand opening May 28 - May 29, 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. Follow on Instagram for further updates.