See, you don’t need a historic structure like the Sweet Auburn Curb Market to cater to smaller food operations in your community. All you need is a parking lot.

From Anthony Bourdain’s “Medium Raw”…

If any good comes out of all the pain and insecurity [of the Great Recession], I can only hope the Asian-style food court/hawker center is one of them.  This institution is way overdue for an appearance (on a large scale) in America.  Scores of inexpensive one-chef/one-specialty businesses (basically, food stalls) clustered around a “court” of shared tables.  When will some shrewd and civic-minded investors (perhaps in tandem with their city governments) put aside some parking lot-size spaces (near commercial districts) where operators from many lands can sell their wares?  Sharing tables, as in classic fast-food food courts?  Why, with our enormous Asian and Latino populations, can’t we have dai pai dong – literally, “big sign street”, the Chinese version of the indigenous food court, like they do in Hong Kong – or hawker centers, like in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur?  Or “food streets,” like in Hanoi and Saigon?  The open-to-the-air “wet” taco vendors and quesadilla-makers of Mexico City?

Food preparation areas could be enclosed, as they are in Singapore, so food handling and sanitation issues can hardly be an unsolvable impediment: Singapore is the most rigorously nanny of nanny states – with the most vibrant hawker culture.

Where would you put one of these?