As soon as Kim Ima, finds a parking spot for her Treats Truck in New York City, she tweets her approximately 3,000 Twitter followers to let them know she's open for business.             

[Kim Ima, Treats Truck Owner]:             
"Twitter is amazing because you can tell people right away, 'Got here 15 minutes early,' then they know, hey the Treats Truck is there, or, you can communicate with people and you know that they've signed up to follow you." 
           
There are about 3,000 licensed food vending trucks in New York City, according to the Street Vendor Project.

Most food trucks tend to stay at one location, but Ima's Treats Truck is in a different spot every day.

One of the advantages of using Twitter is that Ima can let customers know about any last-minute adjustments.
            
[Kim Ima, Treats Truck Owner]:                
"It's New York City, so, so, it's always an adventure so it's good to have a way to communicate with people."             
 
Customers also appreciate the immediacy of the twittering vendors.
            
[Jason Haft, Food Truck Customer and Twitter User]:             
"It's good, so, I want to know where they're at and if it's going to be a long time." 
           
[EJ Cory, Food Truck Customer and Twitter User]:             
"Especially for someone like Kim with St. Patrick's day Parade on Wednesday, she wasn't sure if she was going to park here. So with Twitter she was able to provide location updates and we knew where to find her."

[Madeline Caulfield, Food Truck Customer and Twitter User]:                    
"It's instant you know, they can tweet exactly where they are exactly when they're there and then I can go on my phone or whatever and I can check and make sure that they're where I expect them to be."  
          
Kenny Lao parks his Rickshaw Dumpling truck next to the Treats Truck most Friday's. He has been tweeting since his truck first hit the streets for business and says Twitter is an ideal tool to keep in touch with his 5,000 followers.
            
[Kenny Lao, Co-owner, Rickshaw Dumpling Truck]:             
"People really depend on us to be at certain locations on every day of the week and they get super-duper excited for dumpling day and this is the best way for us to tell them, 'Hey, we're caught in traffic, we're on our way up,' or 'Hey we're parked, get ready,' or 'Here's the special for the day.'"
            
It is estimated that food vendors have been a feature of New York City's streets since the end of the 17th century.