Food Truck Business: Guide for Beginners
Simple Strategic Plan to Build and Maintain a Successful Mobile Business
Shaun M. Durrant
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Table of Contents
Introduction
I knew that if I failed I wouldnt regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying. - Jeff Bezos
Do you stay up at night dreaming of new recipes and owning your own business? Youre not alone! Theres no dearth of people out there who would dearly love to run their own restaurant, but they just dont have the drive to do so. Notice I said drive, not money or ability or anything else. The will to act is all that matters. The food business is both the best and the worst of businesses to get into.
The positives of opening a food business are many. People always need food and a healthy number of us are foodies. Switch the TV on and youll see no end to the number of MasterChef type cooking shows. Theres an entire channel, The Food Network, devoted to the topic with cooking shows running all day long. Cooking blogs and cookbooks are some of the most downloaded material on the internet.
Head over to YouTube and theres no end to kinds of recipes and cooking techniques that people demand. Clearly, people love food so it makes sense to give it to them. However, this is also what creates the negatives when it comes to running a food business. High demand isnt a guarantee of success. Its just a start. Just because you cook well, it doesnt mean youre going to be successful. Surveys indicate that the majority of new restaurants close within their first year of operation ( Restaurant Profitability and Failure Rates: What You Need to Know , 2019).
Why does this happen? Saturation is a major factor. Youre not the only one who can see that people are willing to pay lots of money for food and enjoy spending money on it. As a result, restaurants are abundant. Every street corner has a cool looking place that spoils customers for choice. Walk down the average high-end street and youll find the entire world represented. If your street happens to be in a big city like New York or San Francisco, then this is literally true.
The popular cuisines have sub-cuisines of their own. For example, Indian food isnt just chicken curry anymore. There are many restaurants that serve food from the southern and eastern regions of the country and that food tastes very different from what you might think of as being traditionally Indian. With so many players in the space, its no wonder that many of them fail. Its survival of the fittest after all.
Running a restaurant is a tough business and your margins are low. Most people who open restaurants are great cooks but it takes a lot more than this to run a business successfully. You need to take costs, margins, and marketing into account. All of this can make your head spin, but its what the average restaurant owner needs to deal with.
Is your head spinning yet?
Food Trucks
One way of avoiding falling into the restaurant trap is to open a food truck. Youve probably seen these everywhere by now. Theyre takeaway places that operate from the back of a truck, literally. Park them anywhere, serve food, and drive away into the sunset loaded with cash. Reality is a bit different, but the food truck business is booming in America.
People are demanding great food with easy access more than ever. The rise of social media has led to cool food concepts gaining traction really quickly. While some of these influencers take advantage of businesses, food trucks dont have such issues. First off, the concept of a food truck is cool enough to draw passers-by. Second, its not as if some influencer can simply walk through your food truck and pretend to have eaten there. Its not a restaurant where one can order a glass of water and walk away, after all.
Food trucks offer customers convenience in that they can pick their food up and eat it wherever they want. They dont need to wait for close to an hour at a sit-down restaurant or have to stand in lines to eat greasy food at fast food joints. The quality of a restaurant combined with the convenience of fast food is what makes food trucks such a compelling offer.
Best of all, the economics of a food truck business are a lot simpler to understand for beginners, as Ill be showing you in this book. Ill be taking you from the very first step, why you need a food truck business, to marketing, business plan writing, location scouting, and choosing a good truck.
The most intimidating part of a food truck business is getting approvals. Dealing with the government is always a headache, but in this book, youre going to find that its a lot simpler than you might think. Besides, there are more important things for you to take care of.
Thinking like a business owner is of paramount importance, but unfortunately most people have no idea what this means. To clarify, it doesnt mean you simply chase money all over the place and cut costs indiscriminately. Thats what someone who knows nothing about business thinks its all about. At its heart, being a business owner is all about taking responsibility and accepting that you being in charge is the best possible thing that could have happened to you.
Why This Book?
What makes me uniquely qualified to advise you about a food truck business? For starters, Ive been running a successful food truck for over five years now. Even more importantly, I didnt have anyone teach me through a book like this. I went out there, made a fool of myself, and learned how the business works. There were some tough times but my drive and vision kept me going.
Ive always loved food, both cooking it and eating it. Nothing brings more joy to me than to see people enjoy the food Ive cooked and then demand more. I found the prospect of running a restaurant daunting. Who wants to be cooped up inside all the time when you could be outside enjoying the sunshine? Besides, I figured that if I opened a restaurant, Id be married to my location.
I loved the idea that I could always move to another place if one location didnt suit me. I could set up a pop-up restaurant in case there were special events or concerts in the area. This flexibility is what makes food trucks such a wonderful business. In this book, Im going to show you how its done.
