I love cooking and I love people loving my cooking. However, I don’t like getting told what to do for long term, so working in a kitchen or restaurant is probably a bad position for me. I’ve given years of thinking about working or running a food truck with a rotating menu. It’d be cool to travel around and see different people a day enjoying my different dishes, but I’ve never actually heard the everyday ins-and-outs of working in a food truck. What are some experiences (good or bad) working in a food truck that you could share?
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90% of your time will be spent dealing with the business, 10% of it will be cooking.
OP, please take this succinct statement to heart.
I’ve owned or adjacently owned or been involved with multiple businesses. It always starts out as excitement, it always turns in to paperwork and lawyers and permits and licenses.
I loved the people, the customers (some), the employees, etc. but I always spent more time doing business shit than the things I loved doing. And it erodes your soul over time.
Now, if you end up with an award-winning thing and can afford to pay for some help with some of that stuff? Hell yeah. That’s the dream. But it can be tough to get there.
Also, if you hire someone else to do the business stuff, you’ll add managerial tasks to your workload.
Also they might steal from you, or just do a bad job maybe.
I see… thank you. I have a lot to think about
I’ve listened to professional chefs, owners, and Chef Owners, and a bunch have said that’s why everyone WANTS to get bought out. It’s not just the cheque, it’s the fact that now they can do what they love and someone else does the bullshit.
I don’t personally know any of these people, but I have eaten about a quarter to half of this food, and the people are genuinely nice. Maybe hit one of them up for a forum or FBG hint.
And that 10% is still 8 hour days.
Don’t turn your hobby into your business.
I like ski and golf, so I work part of the year in ski and the other in golf. I hardly practiced either last year. Listen to this person.
This statement tells me more than what most people could tell me. Cheers, my friend
Happy to help!
Still better than turning your business into a hobby… which is what happens to most food trucks that want to become trendy.
I’m nowhere near the business of foodtrucks so obviously take this with an extremely tiny grain of salt, but I think you’ll have better chances sticking to one area and a standard (non rotating) menu. Sticking in one area - because it’s easier to get regulars and free word-of-mouth marketing if they know you’ll still be there next week. Standard menu - because it might be a turn-off for people to love their first time only to come back and not have what they liked available. You can probably rotate specials, but having a standard base menu will help keep your regulars.
That and a rotating menu likely adds overhead costs as it prevents you from specializing (skills, equipment, and ingredients acquisition)
That’s good advice. Thank you
Alternatively, if you really prefer the rotating menu thing you could forget the food truck and do a supper club. Typically a reservation-only, once a week or once a month thing, or whenever you have time. If you could find a small local farm to partner with, they may be able to offer you dining or cooking space in return for showing off their veggies or something.
I don’t know about food trucks in particular, but I recall reading that restauranteering is a very competitive business, that the average lifetime of a restaurant is something like four years.
kagis
This says five years:
https://www.perrygroup.com/foodservice-expert-overview-on-how-long-restaurants-last/
Of those restaurants and foodservice businesses that made it beyond a year, 70% failed within the next 3 to 5 years. Of those that made it beyond then, 90% remained successful and stayed in business longer than 10 years. There is a more recent article this week in The News Press that reports similar results that our foodservice expert report concluded more than a dozen years ago. This excerpt, along with the full story, shows times have not really changed that much as a restaurant management consultant and what you can learn from these Florida restaurateurs: “According to therestaurantbrokers.com, the average restaurant’s life span is five years with up to 90 percent of independently owned restaurants closing in year one.
Holy fuck. No bueno. So you’re saying it’s not a long term career?
Food trucks are wildly different businesses then actual brick and mortar restaurants
That’s why I’m asking. I’m not able to cooperate with restaurants for very long. And this coming from experience, but my wife and I have discussed different options like a food truck
What are the numbers for other startups? As far as I recall, the numbers for non-food businesses are in the same ball park. I.e. founding a successful company is difficult.
Make sure you know what it costs to get your truck inspected by the health inspector and what it takes to get yourself licensed to serve out of it - it can add to your startup costs quite a bit. Research your local laws as well, some cities have some pretty hostile laws/regs for food trucks. If you want you go a county over, you’ll likely need new licensing and more $$$.
Also, no offense meant but if you don’t have at least a few years of experience in a legit commercial / restaurant kitchen, you need that first IMHO. Cooking consistently at the scale that restaurants require is legitimately hard and is a skill that needs honing. Best to do that on a business’s dime.
I am like you, and love the idea of starting up a food truck business. I wouldn’t do it unless I was already wealthy enough to just pour money into it, hire people to deal with the admin, and leave me the fuck alone to cook.
I ran my own (non food) business for a decade. My experience is anecdotal. I don’t pretend I reflect the reality of running your own business, but it fucking sucked.
I spent so much fucking time on admin. I worked 80+ hour weeks, for what amounted to less than minimum wage. After a decade I burnt out and shut it down and now I work a dumb job that I give no fucks about and cook at home with my wife for us and for friends for the sheer pleasure of it.
Edit: my business was based on something I loved to do, and I hated all of the “business” parts of the business.
Wow. Thank you for the insight. I don’t believe that would be something I would want
You’re welcome.
It’s hot as balls.
Haha. This is a good tip. Thanks, bud
I started to turn my hobby into a business 17 years ago. 5 years later it became my main occupation. I don’t spend a lot of time on admin, maybe 15% top, because over the years, I made it a strategic game to streamline my processes, and I pay an accountant to help me with the taxes and other similar things.
It’s awesome to be paid to do what I love to do. How much time is too much when you do what you love? Just remember to balance your life after your business is stabilized, so that you have other hobbies on your time off. Also, make space for the important people in your life.
Expect to work all the time in the first few years though, so plan accordingly, for example, if you wanna have a social life, weave your business into it. If you wanna take some time off to play a game, bring your partners into the game.
Don’t worry, after your business is stable, you will get actual time off.
I suspect the “don’t turn your hobby into a business” idea was originally dreamt up by some business owner who didn’t want their employees to leave for a better life, and then we accepted it because it seems to make sense. It sure delayed me for years, before I decided to make the big jump.
That being said, I hear restaurants have low profit margins especially in large urban areas, so if you go for it, make sure to keep your costs extra low.
Spend time becoming extremely good at something you enjoy (and that your community needs) and you will find some people with disposable income will pay you to do it, because they want something good And they can afford it.