Photograph courtesy of Matt Chernus
FIGURE 2-1: A typical food truck is the size of a standard delivery truck.
The pros of using a food truck over a cart or trailer are that a truck is far more mobile and can use parking spaces designated for one or two cars. Food carts are typically dropped off and parked in a single location and, like trailers, require a secondary vehicle to tow them. The kitchens you can have installed in food trucks are nearly the size of those in some trailers, so using a truck instead of a cart also gives you more space.
Food carts are different from food trucks in that they don’t travel under their own power. These carts are towed by a vehicle and are typically dropped off for the time that they’re permitted, in some cases, multiple years. A major downside to food carts is their size. The average food cart ranges in size from 120 to 200 square feet, which severely limits the amount of equipment and staff you’ll be able to fit inside. You can see a food cart for yourself in Figure 2-2.
Photograph courtesy of Derek Coughlin
FIGURE 2-2: A food cart is smaller than a standard food truck.
Food carts are much smaller than their food truck counterparts; yes, you can see this fact as a negative, but it’s also their key advantage. With less space, you’ll have lower costs in powering your cart (propane and electricity), so with a lower overhead to operate, you’ll have the opportunity to keep your prices lower than those of more mobile platforms.
Much like food carts, food trailers lack a drivetrain system and thus require a vehicle to tow them to the locations where vendors plan to sell their fare. However, these trailers are much larger than food carts (some reach the size of cross-country semitrailers). The vast amount of space that these trailers have allow their owners to install much larger kitchens, which in turn allows them to cater to much larger crowds than the average food truck or cart can handle. See a food trailer in Figure 2-3.
Photograph courtesy of Sarah Jurado
FIGURE 2-3: A food trailer can have a large kitchen.
Up to this point in the mobile food industry’s history, eating at food trucks in many locations of the country is still a unique dining experience. But diners in the Los Angeles, California, or Sarasota Springs, New York, areas have an opportunity to dine somewhere that’s the epitome of unique. Diners in these two cities now have another mobile food option: the bustaurant, a restaurant within a bus (see Figure 2-4).
Photograph courtesy of Lorraine Murphy
FIGURE 2-4: A bustaurant seats its customers.
Instead of the typical standing at a curb, ordering, and eating, the customers of these new eateries are given the option to step onboard and be seated at tables inside the bus. Although these buses are outfitted with state-of-the-art kitchens, the ordinances that regulate them prohibit kitchen operation while they’re moving. For this reason, most of the food is prepared off-site, or in the kitchen only while the bus is stopped in a designated parking area.
One of the biggest differences between the bustaurant and its land-locked restaurant brethren is that if you get seated with a bad view, you may have a better one shortly. The other big difference is the price involved in purchasing a double-decker bus (prices start in the $250,000 range for a standard bus without a kitchen).
Using a double-decker bus to operate your food truck business will clearly differentiate you from your competitors, but it has its fair share of problems as well. You must have a commercially licensed driver, and the size of the bus alone can cause issues of parking on the streets because most shop owners won’t take too kindly to having their entire storefront blocked by the side of your bus.
In other parts of the country, vendors have converted smaller buses for use only as a serving platform as opposed to a place to seat guests. If you choose to go that route, you may still need a driver with a commercial license, but you’ll have fewer parking restrictions to deal with; however, you lose the customer seating option that the double-decker bus provides.
Figuring Out How to Get the Vehicle of Your Choice
Your first step in determining what type of vehicle you can afford is based solely on how much capital you have on hand or how much you can be approved to finance. After you’ve determined your budget and figured out how to finance your business (check out Chapter 5), you’ll be ready to look down the various avenues in which you can acquire the platform for your mobile business. The following sections discuss leasing a vehicle, buying or building a brand-new vehicle, and buying a used vehicle.
If you don’t have access to a large amount of start-up capital but know you’ll have enough to make payments for your vehicle, you may want to lease a food truck for commercial use.
When buying your truck, you may need more than $50,000 at the time of purchase, depending on the size of the truck and the amount and quality of your equipment. Leasing is a much better upfront value because you can get a similar vehicle for a payment of only $3,000 a month. Also, commercial truck leasing offers a huge advantage over outright purchases or financed truck ownership in that truck lease payments are tax deductible for your business.