Running a Food Truck For Dummies®, 2nd Edition
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Copyright © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016952684
ISBN 978-1-119-28613-4 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-28614-1 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-28882-4 (ebk)
Years ago, eating out was an event reserved for special occasions or weekends. In today’s flourishing food service industry, however, you can find a lot of options for any time of the day or week, and because of a number of factors, the food truck has surfaced as a new and exciting way to bring food to the customer.
A lot of people dream of success in the mobile food industry, but due to the relative freshness of the industry and a lack of experienced mentors, many have entered it with misconceptions. Keep in mind that a food truck business is just that — a business. You must crunch numbers, make sales projections, and watch labor costs just like every business. Ultimately, your success will be judged on your profitability, like any other business.
Whether you’re a long-time restaurant operator or a fresh, new culinary school grad, reading this book is a wonderful step in launching your own mobile food business. After reading it, you should know whether you have what you need to be successful.
No food truck industry trade organization will test you to determine whether you have what it takes to successfully enter the mobile food industry. But after you read this book, you’ll have a good idea whether this business is right for you — and you’ll have the knowledge to get started on the right foot. You can devour this book from start to finish (no pun intended), or you can check out only the sections you need — either option works. No matter what your level of experience is, you’ll find this task-oriented reference book your step-by-step guide to entering and staying in the food truck industry.
To help you navigate this book, I use the following conventions:
When this book was printed, some web addresses may have needed to break across two lines of text. If that happened, rest assured that I haven’t put in any extra characters (such as hyphens) to indicate the break. So when using one of these web addresses, just type in exactly what you see in this book, pretending as though the line break doesn’t exist.
You don't have to read every word in this book if you don't want to. I know your time is valuable and you don’t have much time to spare. Therefore, to help you speed things up a little, feel free to skip over anything with a Tech Stuff icon next to it. The information in those paragraphs isn’t really necessary for understanding the topic. Also, the sidebars (those shaded gray boxes) are fun and interesting, but they’re a bonus for people who have the time to read them. Feel free to skip them if you must.
Food truck owners have to make assumptions about the customers who will be approaching their service windows, and authors have to do the same thing — we have to make assumptions about our readers. I’ve come up with the following list of assumptions about why you picked up this book:
In this book, I use small pictures, called icons, to highlight important information. Here’s a guide to what the icons mean and what they look like.
This book comes with an online Cheat Sheet that includes additional helpful information. To get the Cheat Sheet, go to www.dummies.com
and type Running a Food Truck For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box. (No access code required.)
If you want to know everything involved in owning and operating a food truck, start at the beginning of this book and read it straight through. However, if you’re looking for certain aspects of running a food truck, you can refer to the table of contents or the index to find the specific topic you want. Each chapter is meant to stand alone, and the information each chapter contains isn’t dependent on your reading previous chapters to understand it.
If you’re brand-new to the mobile food industry and aren’t sure where to start, Chapter 2 helps you understand the different types of vehicle platforms to choose from that best suit your concept. Interested in tips to create or improve your menu? Turn to Chapter 8. Want to find out how to attract more customers to your service window with the help of social media? Chapter 16 has your name all over it.
You can jump around, start wherever you want, and finish when you feel like it, so buckle in and hit the road.
Part 1
IN THIS PART …
Getting to know the mobile food industry and determining whether you can cut the mustard
Planning out a specific road map for your food truck business, from concept to cuisine
Figuring out how to deliver your future culinary creations
Understanding your local market and determining who your customers will be
Chapter 1
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding a day in the life of a food truck owner
Deciding whether you have what it takes to run your own truck
Walking through the initial stages of starting your mobile food business
Getting ready to open your food truck
Making sure your truck runs smoothly
Drawing crowds to your truck (and getting them to come back)
So you’ve just finished watching the latest episode of Eat Street or The Great Food Truck Race and think that owning a food truck looks like fun. Or maybe you stumbled upon a food truck in your area, watched the busy lines, and noticed that the staff appeared to be having a great time. With these observations, it wouldn’t be a huge leap for you to think, “Hey, these trucks get huge crowds, and the employees seem to be happy, so maybe I should run my own.”
When on the outside looking in, you can easily miss all the hard work that’s involved in getting a food truck business started and ready to serve the community. As the owner, you have to manage every detail of the business, including hiring the staff, designing the menu, and even picking up trash left by your customers. A food truck can quickly become more work than fun if you aren’t aware of all you’ll be required to do.
This chapter serves as your starting point into the mobile food industry. I take you on a quick tour of a day in the life of a food truck owner and then give you a guide to help you look a little deeper at your motivations and expectations for entering the industry. I also walk you through the steps of starting and running your own truck, from deciding what kind to run to getting (and keeping) followers.
Running a food truck is no stroll in the park. In fact, operating a food truck can involve downright dirty, draining, and difficult work. When your employees drop the ball, it’s up to you to pick it up. When a tire goes flat, often you’ll be the one who has to repair it. You’ll work the most (and longest) hours. You’ll work every job in the business, from line cook to mechanic to accountant. To create a successful food truck business, you’ll need to develop a culture of hard work, with you being the one setting the example for your staff.
After weeks (or months) of refining your recipes and spending numerous hours on the phone, waiting in line, and filling out reams of paperwork, you’re finally ready Your truck has been outfitted with the perfect kitchen. The sign company has called to inform you that the graphics and menu board are complete. It’s time to fire up the grill and open for business. Now comes the easy part, right? Sure, it can be a 9-to-5 job, but not in the way you may expect. The following sections provide you with a look into a day in the life of a food truck owner. (Keep in mind that your schedule will look different if you opt for a different service time, such as breakfast or lunch.)
The alarm goes off, and you crawl out of bed; it’s 9 a.m. While the coffee brews, you boot up your computer so you can check any important emails, tweets, Facebook messages, and the like that may have come in overnight. From the time you wake up until approximately two hours later, you’re busy going over your calendar of events and planning for your day. After you complete your correspondence, you start planning for upcoming events. With 30 minutes to go before meeting with your team members, it’s time to get ready and drive to your meet-up location, the commercial kitchen.
You meet with your team to discuss your notes, daily specials, and suggestions from lessons learned the previous day. Your team shares with you what they’ve heard overnight from local news and from customers and competitors. Sharing this information keeps everyone in the loop, part of the team, and, in most cases, in high spirits.
During this time, the team goes to the market and bakery or to inventory the food shipments that have been delivered. After getting the food needed for the truck, everyone heads to the commercial kitchen to chop fruits and vegetables, blend the sauces, and grill the meat (if you serve it). Those team members not involved in the food prep will organize the truck to ready it for the work night, fire up their Twitter and Facebook accounts to notify followers of the truck’s location(s), and conduct another round of correspondence and phone calls.
Time to head to your “office”; you now take the truck from the commercial kitchen’s lot to your first stop.
It’s time! It’s time to open the doors, practice your trade, and make your mark on your community. When you reach your destination and a line of people are already at the curb, the sight is both invigorating and terrifying. It’s invigorating because you already have loyal followers who have found your location and are waiting to be served a meal from your heart. It’s terrifying because you need to park and start cooking quickly so you aren’t keeping your customers waiting too long.
The night’s service is over, and you’ve made your way back to the commercial kitchen. You clean out the truck and wash it down so it’s ready for the next shift. You break down and marinate the meat and, in some cases, even order the bread for tomorrow’s pick-up or delivery.
You store the food and lock up the truck. It’s finally time to head home.
On the trip home, you reflect back on the day and are very thankful that the oil in the fryer didn’t explode or that you were able to start the truck without any issues, and finally, you see it — home sweet home. After a final round of reading emails and listening to phone messages, you go to bed. Your 9-to-5 workday is over, only to start again in a few hours.
Have you ever wanted to start your own business? If you’re self-motivated and have a love of food and people, opening your own food truck can be a great career option for you. Not everyone is cut out for this diverse industry, though. Are you? You can find out with the help of the following sections.
Owning your own food truck takes a special type of person. A successful food truck owner needs to have some business sense. Patience is an important asset in owning your own mobile food business, as are good people skills.
People have many reasons to want to own and operate a food truck; some of my favorites include the following:
To assist you with getting your numbers together for your business plan and financing, you should hire an accountant (preferably one with restaurant or food truck experience) early in the process of starting your business. Chapter 6 has tips on hiring a good accounting professional.
An attorney also can help provide a smooth start-up process for your truck. She can help you get through the mountain of paperwork you’ll be required to fill out and submit for your operational permits. She can also assist you in reviewing contracts and setting up the business structure of your company. So make sure you’re working with a good attorney before you sign your first vendor contract and kitchen lease, or even hire your first employee. You can find these topics and more in Chapter 6.
Your menu is going to be the tool used to attract your customers, but a lot goes into preparing the items on that menu. This work includes the menu’s content and design (see Chapter 8), where the food is going to be stored and prepared (I explore commissary and commercial kitchen options in Chapter 9), the supplies you need to prep your meals (see Chapter 10), and who will actually prepare it (check out Chapter 11 for info on hiring and training your staff).
You may spend much of your day working in your truck, but completing the business aspects, like bookkeeping or calling your suppliers, from inside your truck can be difficult. You need an office to do these tasks, whether it’s at your home or in another location. Chapter 12 helps you set up your office.
Your truck is going to be where you spend most of your time during the business day, and it’s the spot where you’ll be preparing your culinary delights for your customers. Just as a restaurant needs to make sure its kitchen is kept up to code, you must make sure your truck’s kitchen and the food you’re serving are properly maintained to prevent your customers from getting sick. Check out Chapter 13 to find out more about safe food handling practices and other important safety issues, and turn to Chapter 21 for extra tips on passing all your health department inspections.
You may have a highly trained mechanic who maintains your food truck and makes sure you have a finely tuned mobile kitchen, but he can’t determine whether the business being generated in the truck is meeting your expectations. To evaluate the financial side of your business, see Chapter 14.
Sure, stating that attracting customers to your service window is how you’re going to make a profit for your business may be common sense, but doing so is a little more difficult when dealing with a food truck because, well, you’re mobile. You don’t have a permanent location, and to get repeat customers, you have to let the people of your community know where you’re going to be. Adding to that, you have the task of providing your customers with products, service, and an atmosphere that they enjoy and that gets them coming back for more and spreading the word to their friends and family.
After you’ve become a veteran food truck operator, and depending on how the crowds in your market react to your business strategies, you’ll need to determine the direction for your mobile business. If business is booming and you think you need to expand, which route will you take? Franchising? Adding trucks to your fleet? Adding catering services? On the other hand, if the market just hasn’t welcomed your business the way you thought it would, you may have to consider the options of rebranding your concept or even selling. Whatever the case, I discuss all your options in Chapter 18.
Chapter 2
IN THIS CHAPTER
Developing your food truck’s concept
Choosing and buying the right vehicle for your business
Selecting the proper name for your business
Considering the possibility of joining a franchise
So you think you want to enter the mobile food industry? If you’re like many current and previous food truck owners, you have an idea about what type of truck you want to start up. The question I need to ask you is this: Exactly how much time have you really put into this thought?
Before starting up your food truck, the first thing you must do is develop its concept. Your concept describes what your truck will be like in terms of service style, cuisine, and the atmosphere your truck and staff will present. Your concept frames how the public will see your business and defines a general set of expectations the public will have when they walk up to your service window. You have a lot of decisions to make when formulating your food truck concept, and ultimately, you’re limited only by your imagination and budget. With so many possibilities, how do you know what kind of food truck to run?
In this chapter, I go over the items you must decide on as you generate a concept for your food truck. I walk you through the various types of vehicles you can use for your business and explain how to get the vehicle you need. I touch on the important steps in giving your truck a name that people will remember. Last but not least, I present another option for starting a food truck (in addition to starting a business from scratch): joining a franchise.