Food trucks aren't new to Eric Rivera. But when the native Angeleno heard of a new mobile food court downtown, he drove all the way from Downey to try it out.

"I'll be back," Rivera, 41, said after feasting on a pulled-pork taco. His dining room was a 30-foot table with plastic chairs set up near four food trucks parked in front of the loading docks off Traction Avenue and South Alameda Street.

Portable food courts are the latest trend in the food truck craze, eliminating the need for the Twitter-driven cat-and-mouse chases around town. Vendors hope that these new lots will address concerns about the vehicles, such as parking, littering and confrontations with restaurant owners, many of whom feel the trucks steal potential customers.

In January, vendors set up shop on a former used-car lot in Santa Monica, but the operation was shut down after one day because of zoning issues. The city is evaluating the merits of allowing food truck vendors to set up shop on a piece of property, said Eileen Fogarty, director of planning and community development for the city of Santa Monica.

The SoCal Mobile Food Vendors Assn. has planned another lot near the Beverly Center, and trucks are expected to assemble at the Alameda and Traction location during the monthly Downtown Art Walk to ease congestion.

Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge, who represents the Miracle Mile area, said that if the trucks continue to proliferate, it could be bad for neighborhood ambience. If regulations aren't put into place, he said, too many food trucks could crowd streets and lead to shuttered restaurants.

Alex Rocha, general manager of Spitz restaurant in Little Tokyo -- not far from downtown's mobile food court -- wasn't concerned by the experiment.

"I feel kind of like the food truck thing has been overdone," he said.

The vehicles might take some business, but they don't offer the ambience of a restaurant, Rocha said.

Dave Reiss, owner of the Brig, a bar in Venice's Abbott Kinney district, started letting multiple food trucks use his parking lot in the fall of 2008. To Reiss, having trucks in the lot is almost like a built-in restaurant.

"It almost is a modern food court," he said.

--Nicole Santa Cruz

Photo: Tyler McClain takes orders for "Barbie's Q" food truck near the corner of South Alameda St & Traction Ave in Los Angeles, CA February 11, 2010. Photo by Francine Orr for The Los Angeles Times