Whether you use a cart, trailer or vehicle, there are certain requirements that you must meet before you can light up those grills and flat tops!  The authorities must be convinced that your food business meets their standards.

In addition to a permit, there will be a full inspection of your food cart or truck before you receive authorization to serve the public your food!


Features

Food safety is obviously a major issue in public health, and the equipment you use must be appropriate and safe as well. Each state will have its own set of laws so be sure to research your area before buying anything!

For example, if you operate a pushcart in Dallas, your container can be no longer than 6 feet. Furthermore, the roof vents of your container should prevent dust and flies from entering.

Over the past ten years, the popularity of food trucks has grown immensely. Any food lover or casual diner alike enjoys trying the delicious food, yet quick creations that each niche food truck provides.

If the idea of owning a food truck is intriguing to you, that’s great! Just know that like any other food service-based business, there will be many hurdles to overcome to find success. With a little help, you can be on your way to food truck stardom!

Keeping this Guide to Starting a Food Truck Business resource handy as you begin to navigate the murky waters of this niche industry will help you find your footing early on. Without further ado, let’s jump right in!

At some point we all find ourselves standing in line. Never fun, but it feels better if it moves at a nice clip. The thing is, you can get the same effect by making the line appear to move quickly. Managing appearances means managing your customer’s perceptions. Here’s how:

Queue Management

• Be sure to have a line, not a crowd, standing in front of your service window. An orderly progression towards the service window gives customers a sense of calm.

Branding doesn't create, build or strengthen your brand. You read that correctly. First and foremost, your food business brand marketing must always be a reflection of the quality of your menu and service. There are really no exceptions to this rule.

This past year has been a year of transition for me. As it turns out, the older I get the harder it is to operate a high capacity tent operation at large events! So, last spring I made the decision to ground my tent/deep fry operation and instead spend the season doing small local events with a new custom built trailer and a new menu. Unlike the tent/deep fry operation that took many hours to set-up, this little trailer is easy to tow and can be ready to serve in less than an hour. The question was: would it make enough money?

8 No Cost Marketing Tools For Your Food Truck
by Richard Myrick for Mobile-Cuisine

Savvy marketing tools and techniques can attract more customers to your food truck or food business and more viewers to your website. By building your presence without paying for advertising, you’ll have extra cash to invest in other areas.   

Put your URL on all documents and packaging

There's no added cost to include your URL on every single piece of collateral that leaves your food truck or food business. For example:

* Truck wrap
* Business cards
* Letterhead
* Invoices
* Receipts
* Catering presentation folders
* Take-away menus
* Press releases

Be sure your URL appears in all of your advertising and social media. And of course, include it on all forms of packaging: cartons, labels, bags, and any other containers you use.

by Richard Myrick for Mobile-Cuisine

If your books tell you that you need to lower your food costs, reducing your protein serving portions can be a great cost cutting measure. The key is remembering to cut portion sizes strategically so as not to look like you’re "being stingy" with your customers.

3 Trends To Consider When Developing Your Spring 2019 Menu
By Richard Myrick for Mobile Cuisine

Open Up Your Options

Your customers are looking for ways to personalize their meals. What this means for food concession owners is that you need to provide options to your existing menus that appeal to everyone from gluten-free eaters to vegetarians and vegans to paleo-diets and healthy eaters.

image by Nick Hillier

Menu items should be swapped out as dining trends come and go because this will help your menu to stay fresh and exciting for your regular customers. This is a great way for you to appeal to a larger portion of your local community. This doesn’t mean that you need to create a menu with 10 to 15 entrees, but you can still offer 4 to 6 items with various options for each. The key is that any option changes work with your food business brand.

Don’t Get Caught in a Lawsuit! Implement These Food Safety Tips Before Your Next Catering Event
Food Liability Insurance Program 

Imagine you're serving food at a wedding reception and the guests fall ill after consuming your food! How would you respond? Food poisoning can happen to any caterer and it is important to make sure your business is covered.

image by @neonbrand

THE CONARTON-ABBOTT WEDDING

Melissa Conarton and Jesse Abbott contracted a catering company to serve food at their wedding reception. There were over 100 people that got sick and 22 that were hospitalized overnight. According to court papers, the caterer's macaroni and cheese was statistically significant for staphylococcus aureus, a gastrointestinal illness. The couple sued for damages in order to pay their guest's medical bills and the caterer countersued for lack of payment for their services.

Food Concession Menus - Know Your Market
Barb Fitzgerald of FoodBooth.net

image via shari sirotnak

Robert Berman for Mobile Catering Business

Read more!

It's often hard for someone starting a food concession to know WHERE to start. I believe they should start with EVENTS. Before they plan and design any other part of their concession business they should research and become familiar with the type of events they plan to do business at. This is important because, operation-wise, different concessions are more practical and successful at different types of events.

I'll explain, but first let me start by clarifying some lingo:

Food cart - does business from a fixed location such as at a food pod or parking lot. On a day to day basis a food cart serves a steady clientele and operates much the same as a regular storefront food business. A food cart starts by pursuing the ideal permanent location for its business. With a good location found, that job is done.

Food concession - does business at various short-term, albeit sometimes multi-day, events and venues such as special events and county fairs. Concessionaires must pursue multiple locations (events) every event season.

That's all simple enough. But for concessionaires; here's the hard part:

Read more here!




Source: http://www.foodbooth.net/

Your marketing plan gives you enough information to give an enthusiastic investor a fair amount of confidence that you won't be so buried in operating costs that your bottom line never sees the light of day, yet not enough to actually execute. It's not intended to be your "how to" manual, after all. So, what do you do?

In a perfect world, execution of a mobile foods marketing strategy should begin six weeks to three months prior to launch, in order to have your truck rolling smoothly on the streets right out of the gate. But, in too many cases, execution often begins long after, despite the fancy long-range planning in the marketing plan. Or worse, marketing isn't really a consideration at all.

In fact, a vast number of new mobile foods entrepreneurs believe that Social Media Marketing means setting up a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account - they're done, and it's free. Social Media Marketing is the free alternative to the expensive, not-so-effective, yet far-more-expensive traditional marketing, so the cost of marketing is drastically reduced. Not so.

It usually happens when you're reviewing your operating expenses for the month - you realize there's more month left than budget, and the epiphany strikes. There's more to marketing a food truck or stand than meets the eye.

After countless hours frantically searching for easy, cheap, or free solutions, and an empty bottle of Jack Daniels, the tightness in your chest and sinking feeling in your gut tells you that you've either drank too much, or you're going to need to do something serious about that marketing plan.

The six most basic questions to ask to kick start a marketing strategy are:

1. Who do I need to reach?

2. How many of them are there?

3. Where are they?

If you've done a thorough market study, your marketing plan will identify your primary customers, the size of the population, and the locations where they would be likely to stop by your truck or stand for a meal. The next three questions deal with execution.

4. How do I reach them?

An effective execution of your plan should include a combination of blog advertising, Facebook ad campaigns, print advertising, writing on other blogs and influential social network pages, as well as Public Relations campaigns.

Read more here!

Recently, as I drove through Portland Oregon, I passed several food carts that were closed for winter. It got me wondering what the operators of these carts do for income while they wait for better weather to re-open in the spring. It also makes me wonder why these people chose to open a food cart rather than sell seasonally at special events with a food concession. I assume the need for a full-time income is the main reason. But, if a food cart is forced to close for lack of sales, what is the advantage of having a food cart? Do they prefer to sell from a stationary location, regardless, rather than set-up at temporary events? Or, are there other reasons?

I suspect that many food cart operators want a full-time income but didn't know in advance of opening how well they would do month-by-month. It is no small thing to design a food cart and menu, become licensed, and commit to a location. And, it is not until the cart has been open through the seasons that they learn if their location and menu will produce a steady income. At that point, if their location doesn't sustain adequate sales, it is difficult and expensive to move a food cart to a better location.

Food carts depend on foot traffic for business. When the weather is cold and wet too many customers remain indoors or rush past clutching their umbrellas. Depending on their location, some food carts can provide their customers a warm, dry place to eat with an awning, propane heater and picnic tables set in front of their cart. Other carts are restricted from doing this.

Read more here!

A food truck is like restaurant on wheels. It has several distinct advantages over a traditional eat-in restaurant. A food truck can go to where the customers are. It has pretty low overhead, compared to a restaurant, and requires far less staff. However a food truck is still a business that requires a lot of work and attention- especially in the first couple of years. Food truck owners put in long days and have similar problems as restaurant owners, such as slow seasons, bad weather, and sluggish economy. Read on to find out how you can start your own food truck business.

Here's How:

1. Find out if a Food Truck Business is Legal in Your Neighborhood. This may sound like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many places don’t allow food trucks or put a cap on the number of food truck permits allowed at any given time. Case in point – both Los Angeles and New York City are two of the busiest areas for food truck businesses and both have caps on the number of permits allowed.

1. Find out Where You Can do Business. Assuming your city or town allows food truck businesses, next you need to find out where you can do business. Depending on local ordinances you may not be able to park in the busy downtown area. Before you set up shop in a busy tourist area or business park, make sure its legit.

1. Choose a business name. Okay, you now have a solid plan for where you are going to sell your food. Now you can do fun part- decide on a fantastic food truck name. Much like choosing a restaurant name, the name of your food truck business should reflect your food, theme, or concept. Check out these tips for choosing the perfect restaurant (on wheels) name.

Read more here!

GET THERE EARLY!!!

There are some vendors who get to the shows very early and some who get there just minutes before the event starts. Since it takes us a long time to set up, we are one of the early birds. As time goes on, things can become more hectic by the minute. It's nice to get there, unload, park the vehicle and set up. Whatever works for you.

The squeeze. In a lot of events, a 10x10 space is exactly what you get. Your canopy is 10x10 and have you ever found yourself getting to an event where canopies are set up on each side of you and they have 'squeezed' you out. Like, you are short several inches which makes propping up your canopy difficult. One time in Clovis I arrived there somewhat late (coming from the Bay Area in the wee hours of the morning) and found that I only had about 4 feet for my space. Each space was supposedly 10x10, but a number of vendors used a 'few extra inches' and I ended up with that. They had to push their canopies over to allow me to get in. I must say that was not very easy to do.

Get to your event early. It's hell waiting at the end of a street for cars/vans/trucks to unload. Plus as time goes on, people do get stressed out. Also, if there are any problems with your space, etc., you can get things worked out a lot easier (if possible).

Read more here!

The trailer food business is, by nature, a fusion business. It blends the best efforts of gourmet chefs with the street food medium. Yet some food trailers have taken the fusion concept a step further and created their menu with a blend of two or more culinary cultures. Here is a sampling of fusion food you can find in the mobile food scene in Austin:

The Peached Tortilla: Asian + Southern Comfort

Web:thepeachedtortilla.com

Suggested dish:Pad Thai Taco ($3) - Chicken or tofu sauted in a traditional pad Thai sauce, bean sprouts, peanuts, lime wedge.

Story:Former attorney Eric Silverstein was born in Japan. Having traveled throughout Asia to China, Bali and Singapore, he has been exposed to different cultures and foods from an early age. At ten, he moved to Atlanta where he learned about the sultry influences of southern cuisine. When he started his food truck concept, it made sense to mingle the best of both worlds and utilize both Southern and Asian cuisine with the tortilla as his pallet. Thus, the Peached Tortilla was born.

Read more here!