The Patty Wagon, an LA food truck serving burgers

Food trucks are catching on in many cities around the country, and their growing popularity may provide a boost to the mobile payment industry as well.

Business Insider interviewed Ross Resnick, founder of food truck tracking site and iPhone app Roaming Hunger, and he sees food trucks as the perfect type of business for mobile payments.

“The mobile food scene is all about less infrastructure. Square [ed. note: a mobile credit card reader and application for the iPhone or iPad] can provide all these tools remotely for a vendor, all they need is this little apparatus. I have one myself, it’s pretty turnkey.

The biggest problem I’ve seen, anecdotally from all these trucks, people find [Square] so interesting that they hold up a line.  They want to know about what it is, they ask questions. But I haven’t heard of any pushback or anybody not trusting it with a credit card. It’s very meaningful for mobile vendors, it’s just amazing,” Resnick says.

Roaming Hunger actually makes most of its money through providing software to other companies and organizing events with food truck vendors. If they can become the defacto place to go to find out where food trucks will be and when they’ll arrive though, we could see a future for the company as a distributed OpenTable, where they handle some portion of payments for people who want to place advance orders or guarantee that a certain dish will be waiting for them when they make it to the truck. While it’s a slightly different variation on the mobile food trend, if the people cooking on sites like Gobble (and SuperMarmite in France) are paying attention it wouldn’t be surprising to see systems like Square powering more pop-up dining experiences.

In a bit of interesting food truck trivia, if you’re an aspiring chef you may find it more cost effective to start a food truck rather than a restaurant: Resnick estimates the startup cost of a food truck to be $50-150k, or about 20-30% of the cost of opening a restaurant. If that sounds good, then take your money and truck and head West; truck for truck LA and San Francisco are more into food trucks than New York.

Canard Inc., a New York catering firm shared some of the tasty treats they’ll be preparing, and we’ve also picked out a few of the tastiest sounding events where – despite the seeming irony – fashion meets food.

Levi’s

Mini-burgers from Canard

Canard is catering a “workman themed event with modern interpretations of classic dishes.” Stop by for

• mac-n-cheese – macaroni and cheese square with truffle oil
• wings – deconstructed chicken wings with buffalo sauce, roquefort dip and celery stick skewer
• cheeseburgers – bite-sized turkey cheeseburgers on poppy seed brioche buns with catsup and mustard

On one hand, we’d say don’t overdo it. On the other, this could be a great way to find out if the jeans you’re eyeing will hold up during holiday meals and other food indulging events.

Via Spiga

Canard will be giving the shoemaker a “sophisticated Italian” menu with

• cheesecake lollipops
• cannolis
• espressos

Judith Leiber

If you’re a true recessionista, the closest you’d normally come to Judith Leiber is probably a lucky find at Housing Works or the right resale shop. Just for this night, the minaudiere maker will be doing something just for the recessionistas, courtesy of Canard.

• “recessionista” cocktail – Stoli vodka, cranberry, fresh lime, 7-up
• upscale pigs-in-a-blanket, skewered with mustard dollop
• mini NY-style cheesecake with black wafer crust

Crumbs Bake Shop

It won’t be free, but Crumbs – one of the best cupcake makers in New York (we’re going on personal taste tests here) will be selling a special Fashion’s Night Out cupcake with a portion of sales benefiting the New York AIDS fund. No details on what’s in the cupcake, but we’re betting  that it will be worth trying.

Dylan’s Candy Bar

Dylanâ€s Candy Bar and Savannah College of Art and Design have teamed up for a sugary sweet shopping evening with a Marshmallow Gun battle and  candy cocktails, compliments of Ed Hardy Vodka. Candy couture dresses designed by students of the Savannah College of Art and Design will be displayed if you need a little Project Runway-esque inspiration for your candy shopping.

Food Truck Faceoff at Lord & Taylor

Starting at 6pm, Cupcakestop.com, Street Sweets, Treats Truck and Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream will park their trucks and set up shop at various spots around the store.