Over the past five years, the Chinese government-led campaign to close down street food vendors and small hole-in-the-wall shops has been extremely successful. But the Covid pandemic has led China’s residents to push back. When Premier Li Keqiang praised Chengdu’s “street vendor economy” for generating 100,000 jobs after the pandemic had peaked in the foodie mecca, Shanghai locals celebrated, hoping that their favorite roving street food stalls would once again find a place on the city’s streets. While there have been more and more sightings of vendors stir-frying rice noodles in portable woks on sidewalks around the city over the past few months, the Shanghai government has made it clear that most of the new vendors will be more in the style of fancy food trucks serving Western dishes.