What kind of riverside dining would be exciting and unique enough to attract people to the Golden Triangle as well as enrich the lives of those who live or work Downtown?

We asked readers last month to help us brainstorm on creative ways to bring dining to our Downtown riverfronts, whose panoramas provide some of the best views in the country.

Cindy and Todd Green of Squirrel Hill suggested a boathouse restaurant similar to the beautiful structure in New York's Central Park. Another reader fantasized about a restaurant built into the underside of one of the bridges, which would truly be a one-of-a-kind dining experience. But some readers also worried that expensive ventures might be doomed because there simply wouldn't be enough regular diners.

Successful riverfront dining also would need to be inexpensive enough that people who work and live Downtown would be frequent visitors.

Ultimately, we came to a conclusion similar to a suggestion made by Patricia Flinn of Brighton Heights: The Downtown riverfronts need food carts, the kinds that have thrived in other cities, selling everything from tacos to dumplings to hot dogs made from organic meat and served on a toasted baguette.

Food carts are flexible and portable. They could sell ice cream and cold drinks in the summer, and roasted chestnuts and hot cocoa in the winter. They could also be moved if the riverfront area flooded, as parts of it do periodically.

Just last week, Portland, Ore., completed a formal survey-based Food Cart Study, which concluded that "food carts have positive impacts on street vitality and neighborhood life in lower-density residential neighborhoods as well as in high-density downtown areas."

The Riverlife Task Force, a nonprofit public-private partnership that advocates and plans for the thoughtful redevelopment of Pittsburgh's riverfronts, is overseeing the transformation of the Monongahela Wharf from a parking lot to a "sustainable greenway" (with parking) that will include a promenade and switchback ramp to the Smithfield Street Bridge.

This stretch would be the perfect testing area for food carts, partially because Riverlife is enthusiastic about the potential draw of food vendors in the Mon Wharf park. Though it's still too early in the process to discuss formal plans, the organization might conceivably help arrange some of the things that the Portland Food Cart Study suggested were vital to a flourishing food cart area, such as picnic tables, plenty of garbage cans and, ideally, some shelter from inclement weather.

If the carts were successful, there are plenty of other riverfront places to try Downtown. The fountain by the David L. Lawrence Convention Center and the riverwalks bordering Point State Park are both good locations for their own food cart gathering spots.

Riverlife's slogan is "Bring Life to the Rivers. Bring the Rivers to Life." I say, bring food carts to the riverfront and the people will follow.