Photos by ERIC BRADY The Roanoke Times

Co-owners Sandy Wilkinson (left) and Shellie Crowder prepare orders for customers Friday at Little Dipper cafe on Market Street in downtown Roanoke.

The Little Dipper owners are protesting a move that could allow mobile food vendors on Roanoke city property.

The independent bookseller on Campbell Avenue likes the idea of colorful pushcart vendors hawking food in downtown Roanoke.

But the ice cream shop owners on Market Street do not. And they are not alone among brick-and-mortar restaurateurs downtown.

Business is slow enough, they say, without adding competition from vendors on wheels -- people whose low overhead could allow food on the cheap.

Meanwhile, a pedestrian savoring a sunny lunch hour Friday on Market Square said he can envision an urban center enlivened by mini-entrepreneurs selling hot dogs, hot pretzels, sizzling sausages, ice cream, bottled water and the like.

Businesses and residents can all weigh in, if the spirit moves, about pushcart food vendors during a public forum set to begin Tuesday afternoon in the chambers of Roanoke City Council at the Noel C. Taylor Municipal Building. Roanoke's planning division seeks input from all sides as it develops a proposal that could allow mobile food vendors to operate on city property.

And not just on downtown sidewalks. Pushcart vendors might opt to set up along the city's greenways, at ball fields teeming with thirsty youths or just about anywhere people gather -- even at the unofficial smoking area near Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

As envisioned, the Roanoke City Market area would be off-limits.

Chris Chittum, the city's planning administrator, said city officials directed planners last fall to draft a proposed ordinance that could establish a process to issue permits for people to operate "small, mobile pushcarts on sidewalks, parks, greenways and other public places."

Chittum said the city has been fielding inquiries from people interested in becoming pushcarters.

He cited a recent Roanoke Times column about hot dog seller Mendy Songer's vain search for a public place to park her cart.

Songer won't find sympathy at Little Dipper cafe on Market Street, where co-owners Sandy Wilkinson and Shellie Crowder have parked a petition. It asks city council "to ban all mobile food carts/street vendors as unfair competition to brick-and-mortar businesses downtown."

The Little Dipper owners said limiting pushcart vendors to downtown spots outside the city market area would not help.

"Once they've eaten, they've eaten, and they're not going to come down here or go someplace else," Wilkinson said.

"We have 60 restaurants in downtown Roanoke," Wilkinson said. "If we had lines of people going out the doors, waiting to be served, or standing room-only restaurants having trouble finding times to make reservations, then these food cart vendors could take up the slack."

Wilkinson and Crowder said they have no objections to pushcart vendors operating along greenways, at soccer fields and in other public spaces. Just not downtown.

Cathy Procopio operates Cantos Booksellers, less than a block from Market Square.

"My biggest problem is that I love food, and I say the more food, the better," Procopio said Friday. "The more food, the more people," and more people means more potential business for Cantos, she said.

Although Procopio said she understands the concerns of neighboring restaurants, the market area seems to her like an ideal spot for mobile eateries.

"I have to admit, if you are going to have street food, you're going to have it in the heart of the city. This is the heart of the city," Procopio said. "I wonder if there is some way of negotiating some middle ground."

Negotiating middle ground doesn't come easy in downtown's heart.

Controversy brews still about construction planned at Center in the Square and major renovations proposed for the Roanoke City Market Building.

The Center in the Square work will displace farmers and crafts people who occupy outdoor stalls. The city market renovations will displace retailers and the building's long-suffering food court restaurateurs.

The planning department's proposal envisions boundaries around the city market that pushcart vendors could not cross. The mobile sellers could set up on the west side of Jefferson Street, south of Church Avenue, east of Williamson Road and north of Salem Avenue.

Kyle Inman, enjoying the sun warming Market Square, said he favors giving pushcart vendors a try.

"I think it would be great," he said. "It would certainly add ambiance and liveliness down on the street level."

But Inman said he also understands concerns expressed by existing food sellers. A hot dog sold on Jefferson Street is one less sold by the venerable Roanoke Weiner Stand, he said.