Food truck industry to hit $2.7B

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Food trucks probably aren’t at the top of your list when you are thinking of what kind of business to start, but they probably should be. The take very little overhead to get started, they are supremely flexible, and they have the potential to generate $250,000-500,000 a year. So why aren’t you thinking about starting a food truck again?

Brick and mortar restaurants can cost around $300,000 on average for a modest setup just to get started, and overhead can be pretty sizable from month to month. Startup costs for food trucks, on the other hand, can be less than $100,000 and the overhead costs are significantly lower than an entire restaurant and its staff. A food truck can be staffed by you alone or you and a friend or family member, whereas a restaurant requires cooking staff, serving staff, and management at minimum.

Food trucks are also considerably more flexible than brick and mortar restaurants for a number of reasons. If you open a restaurant and find out it is in a bad location, moving can be very costly. If you open up your food truck in a bad location on Monday, you can be in a new location by Tuesday (or even Monday night). If your customers aren’t crazy about your menu at a brick and mortar restaurant you have to retrain your entire staff, but a large volume of new foods, and reprint menus. With a food truck you just buy a small amount of different food the next day and make something new tomorrow– little space means you can buy less food at a time. If you have a brick and mortar restaurant you have to plan to be there every day for at least the first year, and after that you really need someone you can trust to run it so you can go on a vacation for a few days. Most people don’t even get a chance to go on vacation from a brick and mortar restaurant for years! With a food truck you just leave it parked for a week or even rent it out to a different operator to make a little extra cash.

There are a lot of pros to starting up a food truck, yet there are still so many markets that are underserved by this popular new trend. Learn more about the business of food trucks and how to get started from this infographic.

Food Truck

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