16 Lessons I Learned After My First Year Owning a Food Truck

How I Raised $29,354 For My Food
Startup & Other Lessons From My
First Year in Business
By Malcolm Bedell, Owner of ‘Wich Please
thefoodstartup.org
Foreward from Malcolm Bedell - Important: Read This Part!
Hi There! My name is Malcolm Bedell, and it’s hard to believe that two years ago
I was sitting in a cubicle, staring at a blinking computer screen most of my days
for work. My desk job paid the immediate bills, but I felt unfulfilled and would
frequently day-dream about a different life. For me, that dream would always take
me back to owning my own food business like a restaurant or food truck where I
had the freedom to be my own boss, be creative in the kitchen, and experience
the satisfaction of serving the food that I cooked to customers… instead of
tapping a keyboard all day.
I needed to make a drastic change. I literally spent years dreaming about
starting my own venture, I finally mustered up the courage to begin taking the
steps to actually owning my own food business.
The guide you’re reading now is my personal diary of starting a food business (a
food truck!). The journey began in 2014, but it’s also an unfinished story that
continues today. Each page was written in real time as things were still
happening and wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull this business thing off. Now that
I’ve come out the other end safely and own truck, I’ll be the first to tell you that
being your own boss isn’t always easy, but the journey has been totally worth it
and one of the most rewarding and transformational events of my life outside of
becoming a father.
If you find yourself in a similar situation as mine—dreaming of starting a food
based business but not really sure how or where to start. I hope that my story
can inspire you to start taking those first initial steps to pursuing your goals.
My great big parting piece of advice before we dive into the guide: If you
have the goal to start a food business, find someone that has successfully done
what you want to do. Learn from these people and ask them questions when you
get stuck. Seeking out successful entrepreneurs, listening, and just asking for
help has resulted in the biggest moments of personal progress for my business.
If you take this one piece of advice to heart and continue to take action, you’ll be
leaps and bounds beyond other aspiring entrepreneurs that dream of getting
started.
thefoodstartup.org
HEY, IT’S ME:
MALCOLM BEDELL
IN 2010, I STARTED A FOOD BLOG CALLED
FROMAWAY.COM. EVENTUALLY I DECIDED I
DIDN’T WANT TO JUST WRITE ABOUT FOOD,
BUT ACTUALLY MAKE IT FOR OTHER PEOPLE
TOO…. SO I STARTED A SEASONAL FOOD
TRUCK CALLED, "'WICH, PLEASE,” THAT WAS
NAMED "HOTTEST RESTAURANT IN MAINE" FOR
2015 BY EATER.
MY ULTIMATE GOAL HAS ALWAYS BEEN TO
OWN A RESTAURANT. I’M NOT THERE YET, BUT
WITH HELP FROM MY MENTORS AND
COMMUNITY I KNOW I CAN ACCOMPLISH THIS
GOAL TOO.
I HOPE YOU FIND MY EXPERIENCES HELPFUL
IN LAUNCHING YOUR OWN FOOD STARTUP!
thefoodstartup.org
STAGE 1: KICKSTARTING MY FOOD TRUCK
This section serves as a personal diary that documents the process I took
to start my own food truck business. I was writing all of this in real time, as
it happened so I wasn't always sure how things were going to work out for
me at the time of writing. My hope is that by following along with the
journey of my first food startup, you’ll be able to take away valuable lessons
based on my experiences, challenges, and also give outline how I was able
to raise almost $30,000 for my food business on KickStarter.
Enjoy the journey!
Part 1: The First Day of the Rest of Our Lives
I’ve been working on something for about a month now, that’s
very personal, and very important to me. It could change not just
my entire life, but the lives of my whole family. And it’s high time I
told you about it, because I need your help to make it work.
As most of our regular readers know by now, we’ve been blogging
about food here at FromAway.com for nearly five years now. But
that’s not really the way that we earn a living. Since around 2001,
I’ve also made a career on the internet, first in graphic design,
and later in online marketing and social media.
Here’s the thing: I have to get out.
It’s not just my rapidly-expanding waistline, or the creeping nerve
damage in my hand resulting from slouching at a desk with one
hand on a mouse for 15 years. It’s not the fluorescent lights that
hang over my bank of cubicles, or even the fact that I’ve barely
even seen the new baby girl that we welcomed into the world two
months ago.
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No, the problem is this: My “career” isn’t getting me anywhere.
I’m still uninsured. I’ve got no retirement plan. Nothing in the way
of savings. A ten year old car that still isn’t paid off, and a rented
apartment. I’m stuck on the same hamster wheel as most of us
are, with no means of getting off, and no means of ensuring a
secure future for my family.
It’s not a good feeling. And it’s time to do something major to fix it,
to summon all of my courage and do something that’s terrifying,
but that puts me very firmly on the track of doing not just what I
HAVE to do all day, but what I really WANT to do. It’s time to stop
making other people rich, pushing pixels around on websites that
will be gone in 18 months. It’s time to build a sustainable business
that is bigger than myself, that provides stability not just for today,
but for down the road, when I am older and grayer, and when
spending my days being paid to write tweets for other people
feels even more ridiculous than it does right now.
It’s time I made you a really good friggin’ sandwich.
We came crashing into the food world in 2010, building an entire
website out of macro photos of sandwiches, pithy observations on
frozen burritos, full-scale evaluations of the insides of Chinese
dumplings, and my mom’s recipe for lobster bisque.
Since then, much of the work I’ve been doing in the food
community has been offline, where I’ve gotten gigs writing for real
magazines, and started cooking in (and winning) nationwide
competitions. We even landed a book deal.
For years, more and more of what I’ve been doing has pointed me
away from the computer screen, and into the kitchen. And now,
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it’s time to jump in with both feet. That’s why this morning, I am
launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund a new food truck,
opening this Spring, and operating year-round in Rockland,
Maine.
Why a food truck? Why Rockland? Why sandwiches? I address
all of these questions on the Kickstarter campaign page. But I
want to use this space to make a more personal appeal to you,
our readers, friends, and family, because you’ve seen what we
can do. You know more that anyone else just what the potential of
this project is, both for us, and for our Maine community.
Help me do this. Help me get this new business off the ground.
Help me prove that you can take the leap, and that the scariest
things to do, the biggest risks to take, can have the greatest, most
far-reaching rewards. I’ll document every step of launching this
business here on the blog, from initial Kickstarter funding, to
building out the trailer, getting my permits, and learning how the
deep fryer works.
Most importantly, I’ll make you something ridiculously delicious for
lunch, every single day.
Part 2: The Terror of Being Half Funded
It’s been an incredible first 15 or so days, roughly the first half of
our Kickstarter campaign to execute a mid-career hail mary and
launch ‘Wich, Please, a mobile concession trailer in Rockland,
Maine. In the first two weeks, we’ve raised almost $14,000, from
almost 200 different people from all across the country and from
all walks of life, including a United States Congresswoman, an exNavy Seal, and even a former host of This Old House. The surge
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has been enough to catapult the ‘Wich, Please campaign to the
15th most-funded food truck campaign in Kickstarter history.
That’s right. For as long as Kickstarter has been helping people
launch their mobile food empires, only 14 others have managed
to raise more money than we have.
As I gaze down the barrel of the second half of this campaign, the
fear I felt before we launched is still there, though it has changed
somewhat. At first, I was terrified to take this secret, back-of-mymind, only half-formed idea (“I’mastart a food truck!”), and not
only develop it into a real plan, but to open it up to public
comment from both my closest friends and family, as well as the
complete strangers that I talk to on the Internet every single day. I
imagined that reaction would be mixed; one part ridicule, maybe,
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mixed with one part dubious, grudging support from my closest
friends, and perhaps one more part unbridled enthusiasm.
Instead, I’ve been humbled by the support I have received so far.
Nearly two hundred of you think that this is a really, really good
idea. Such a good idea, in fact, that you are willing to take some
of the money that YOU’VE earned, and use it to finance MY
dream. That’s an incredible vote of confidence, and not something
I take lightly.
What changes in the second half of the campaign, though, the
new fear, is exactly how I’m going to come up with that remaining
$11,000, now that my closest friends and family have nearly
maxed out their generosity and are starting to get a little tired of
my incessant pleas on Facebook. As you know, Kickstarter is an
“all-or-nothing” funding platform. If we don’t reach the campaign
goal of $25,000, we lose the whole thing. Hypothetical funding
has suddenly turned into real dollars. $14,000 of them. The
thought of losing that is almost scarier than the notion that no one
might care about this project in the first place. Suddenly, there’s
real money at stake, and if we can’t figure out how to keep
momentum going, we risk losing it all.
How can you help? First, if you have been on the fence about
whether or not to back this campaign, now is the time. If
you’ve ever found anything we’ve done on this blog useful, if one
of our recipes has become one of your staples, if one of our
restaurant recommendations has ever steered you in the direction
of unexpected culinary nirvana, please consider clicking here and
showing your support for this new venture now, with a pledge at
any level.
thefoodstartup.org
We’re adding new perks for our Kickstarter backers all the time,
like this exclusive t-shirt designed by Seth Mathiau, artist and
owner of Atlantic Studios in Rockland:
We’ve also added an “Out of Towner” perk for potential backers
who may never get to visit Rockland and try one of our
sandwiches, but still want to help out. Now, backers at the $25
level can have their reward given to anyone local they’d like, or
even donated to someone in need. This makes this level the
perfect option for any “Mainers in Exile” who want to send a gift
back home.
Even if showing your support with a pledge isn’t a possibility, you
can still help us to keep spreading the word about this campaign.
We really believe that we’ve stumbled onto something special,
here, and the more people that we can get talking about it,
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blogging about it, or sharing it on social media, the better our
chances are of being able to see this thing through. So please.
Share it on Facebook. Email your mom about it. Ask your mom to
email my mom. Tweet it. Tumble it. Stumble it. Do whatever it is
you do. Because now, we’ve come too far to see it all disappear.
Part 3: We Did It
There’s a huge difference between the version of me that exists
right now, and the one that existed a little over thirty days ago.
That’s because thanks to you, the ‘Wich, Please sandwich truck is
117% funded, raising $29,457 in about a month.
It’s a mandate. You want this truck to come to Rockland, Maine.
More importantly, you believe in me, and you believe in my
dream. And that’s something I’ll never, ever be able to thank you
for enough.
When we launched this campaign back in October, it was with a
plea for backing with a goal amount so massive, that even
thinking about it as an abstract figure barely made sense. Asking
for $25,000 felt like asking for 25 million; more money than I could
imagine being able to raise.
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And now, here we are, with the 7th most funded food truck in
Kickstarter history. Go ahead. Click that link and see for yourself.
Now, the real work begins, with over 400 of you watching my
every move. I’ve got an awful lot of you to make proud, and I’m
going to get started right away. Here’s a rough timeline:
I’ll be sending out surveys to collect some info from all backers,
and begin producing the lower-level rewards (bumper stickers and
t-shirts) by the end of next week, and getting those shipped out.
Lunch boxes will take a little longer, and of course, I won’t be able
to get you your free sandwiches until we actually open, which we
are targeting for the spring.
I’ll complete the purchase of the trailer in December, and start
working to get it up to snuff with equipment and signage by midFebruary. Of course, there’s a ton of other stuff: Forming a new
corporate entity to manage all of this, establishing bank accounts,
finding suppliers, licensing, permitting, health inspections, etc.
These are all very, very good problems to have. Thank you again,
from the very bottom of my heart, for burdening me with them.
Here are a few facts and figures from the campaign:
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•
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•
Amount raised: $29,457
Number of backers: 401
Percent of goal: 117%
Amount raised in day one: $6,986
Average pledge amount: $73.46
Top referrer of pledges: Facebook, with 111
pledges totaling $8,973
Number of manual Facebook PMs sent: Nearly 2,000
Number of frozen burritos eaten: 11
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•
•
Number of appendectomies performed during campaign: 1
(Jillian’s)
Number of surprisingly decent rocks glasses you get when you
buy the Crown Royal holiday gift set from a CVS in the middle of
the night right before your campaign ends: 2
And of course, I have a whole raft of people to thank. In no
particular order: The Bangor Daily News, The Pen Bay Pilot, The
Courier-Gazette, The Coastal Journal, Shannon Kinney and all of
the Dream Local Digital #honeybadgers, Lucas McNelly, Abigail
Curtis, Carol Gardner, Susan Axelrod, Brett
at FoodTruckEmpire.com, Pat at FoodTruckr.com, Adam at Eater
Maine, Anestes at PortlandFoodMap.com, BoozeFishCoffee.com,
The Perloff Foundation, Kickstarter, Kendall Kurz, Steve Thomas,
Seth Mathiau at Atlantic Studios, and of course, the hundreds and
hundreds of people on Facebook and Twitter that believed in this
project, believed in me, and risked friendships by relentlessly
sharing and tweeting about this campaign.
I hope I didn’t forget anyone. You all are the ones that got this
done, and made it happen for me. So, thank you again. Now let’s
make sandwiches.
Part 4: The Work Begins
It’s been a few months since the successful funding on Kickstarter
of the ‘Wich, Please truck. As you may recall, we managed to
raise just shy of $30,000 in one month (making our campaign the
seventh most-funded food truck in Kickstarter history), in order to
launch a new sandwich empire in the small town of Rockland,
Maine. In the two and a half months since our last post on the
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truck, a lot has changed and developed, and I wanted to bring you
up to speed.
First, we have an official logo! While the “Rage Against the
Machine” -style faux grungy text was perfect for our Kickstarter
campaign, we wanted to clean up the logo a little bit for the actual
truck.
A lot of people were asking about proper pronunciation of the
name of the business: Was it a singsongy “‘Wich, Please,” issued
as a polite request? Or should the name of the truck be spoken
with just the slightest bit of stank on it, a dismissive retort to a
ridiculous unspoken request?
To help with these burning questions, I wanted to design a logo
that evoked a bit of a 1970’s sitcom feel, like the old “Three’s
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Company” or “Good Times” logos, to help urge along the proper
level of sass. I’m pleased with the final result, and can’t wait to
plaster it on the side of the trailer as a huge vinyl decal.
Did I say “trailer?” That brings me to the next exciting order
of business. Early in December, in the cold, grey drizzle of
Absecon, New Jersey, I paid cash for a 2013 8×10 foot bright red
concession trailer…the new base of operations for ‘Wich, Please.
This trailer is fully loaded, and almost ready to go. I’ve got a fire
suppression system. A hood system. 4 sinks, a hot water heater,
an on-board water fill tank and empty tank. A 40 lb deep-fryer, a
two foot griddle, three under-counter fridges, a mini convection
oven, and 3 door- under counter freezer. Two 100 lb propane
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tanks. A 1000 watt microwave. Not to mention tons of extras for
prep and service: 30 1/3 and 1/6 pans. A heat lamp. 6 half sheet
pans, an electric coffee urn, two saucepans, and an electric
steam table. Two cases of styrofoam take-out containers, a case
of coffee cups with lids, a janky cash register, and about 1,000
plastic forks.
Used just one season to sell Spanish tapas along the boardwalks
of the Jersey Shore, I was extremely lucky to find a trailer in such
good condition, and almost completely equipped. I flew into
Philadelphia and made the short trip to Atlantic City, where I
arranged to make the purchase early the next morning.
This whole business went from being something abstract and
imagined just a few short months ago, into something very real
the moment I swung the door open and stepped inside. Actually, it
became very real the moment I met the seller, a man who used
language so obscene that I can’t even refer to its initials, inside of
fifteen seconds of introducing himself. As we stood in his kitchen
counting out thousands and thousands of dollars into small piles, I
felt overwhelmed. There was (and is) so much to learn about this
new world that I’ve thrust myself into, and I feel like I’ve got so
much to prove.
Would I be able to get the stains left by the industrial de-greaser
out of the stainless steel lining the walls? Will I be able to find
someone to fabricate a new steel leg on the giant grill, that broke
off during transport? What will happen if I forget to turn on the
water pump before I fire off the hot water heater? Will there be
room to add a couple of induction burners? Will I accept credit
cards? Where am I getting my bread? This huge list of worries,
both real and imagined, goes on and on.
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In the meantime, I paid a very good friend (with a very big truck)
to haul the trailer back up to Maine, where it sits waiting for Spring
in Cushing, a few towns down the coast. As soon as the snow
stops and I can dig it out, I’ll start breaking everything down and
cleaning the inside from top to bottom, as well as tossing out
anything that came with the sale that I can’t use (a case of nondairy creamer? Seriously?). And of course, I’ll post interior photos
in my next update.
For now, I have legal hurdles to jump through. The location I had
planned on for the trailer isn’t going to work out. Because it hadn’t
been used for food service before, the hurdles were numerous.
The city would require at least ten dedicated parking spaces for
use by the business, which was more than my prospective
landlord could afford to strip away from his own business.
Additionally, I would have to submit a site plan and present it in
front of the city council for approval, a process that seemed both
terrifying and arduous.
Instead, I have submitted an application for a new location, that is
already set up and approved by the city for mobile food
businesses. As soon as I have an update on the status of the
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application, I’ll make an official announcement about the location
of the truck. While I wait for that to come through, I also need
some more licenses: An “Eating and Lodging” license and a tax
registration from the state, as well as a Victualer License from the
city.
What’s left for this update? Oh, Kickstarter rewards! Many of
the entry-level Kickstarter rewards have already gone out,
including bumper stickers, gift cards redeemable for free food,
and limited-edition Kickstarter t-shirts. The bigger rewards, like
the lunch boxes and autographed copies of our book, are going to
take a little longer.
We’ve also got a website for the business started at
www.WichPlease.me. There’s a lot more that needs to be done
on the site, including adding menus and photo galleries, but for
now, please do sign up for our newsletter so you can stay
informed of our progress and launch details. There’s also a link
there for anyone who may have missed out on the initial
fundraising campaign to donate a few extra dollars.
Finally, we were very excited to see that Eater Maine chose the
‘Wich, Please truck as one of the “Six Most Anticipated Maine
Restaurant Openings” for the Spring. So, y’know. No pressure or
anything.
As always, thank you so much for following along with this project
and this story. I’ve got a lot of work to do, and your support and
encouragement really means a lot. It’s amazing that we’ve come
this far, on the road to getting killer sandwiches into the hands of
the people in my hometown, and we’re not going to rest until I can
finally kick that service window door open and welcome you
aboard. Thanks.
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Part 5: Unexpected Snags
In November of last year, we managed to raise just shy of
$30,000 in one month (making our campaign the seventh mostfunded food truck in Kickstarter history), in order to launch a new
sandwich empire here in Rockland, Maine. It’s been almost a
month since our last update, chronicling the details of launching
the business and getting the doors open, and as usual, a lot has
changed, along with a few unexpected surprises that have
popped up.
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The biggest issue is location. After my original location fell through
(see last update for details), I hoped to be able to open ‘Wich,
Please in Buoy Park (the town landing), a harborside stretch of
grass that is already home to two other food trucks: Pho Sizzle
and Duo’s Seafood.
This is a desirable location for a few reasons. First, it meets my
goal of being central to downtown, to serve Rockland’s local
workforce, as well as Summer tourist traffic. This Summer,
Rockland is expecting at least eight cruise ships to anchor, which
will bring hordes of hungry customers exhausted by the on-board
all-you-can-eat crab leg buffets and bottomless rum punches to
our shores. Obviously, the sheer numbers here are exciting, as
well as the opportunity to spread the gospel of ‘Wich, Please far
and wide, when all of those tourists go home and hopefully have
good things to report about the sandwiches they ate on vacation.
Buoy Park also happens to be a gorgeous dining room, for a
bargain price. We’ll have to pay rent at the park (an unexpected
expense), but it’s a fraction of what waterfront real estate costs.
We’ll also be able (for an additional fee) to join the Maine Lobster
Festival, the North Atlantic Blues Festival, and the Maine Boats,
Homes, and Harbors shows, once summer gets in full swing.
Finally, there’s a ton of benefit to “clustering” with other food
trucks. If we can form a kind of outdoor, seaside food court, with a
reputation for great food at an affordable price for families, we all
benefit, and any marketing any one of us does can only help the
other businesses. It’s a big win, all the way around.
I submitted my application for Buoy Park, and thought all was
ready to go. Exceeeeeeeept…
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As it turns out, Rockland’s new mobile food ordinance only allows
for two food trucks in Buoy Park. Not three. My choices were to
petition for an amendment to the ordinance, or move the truck
outside of the “downtown zone,” which would make marketing the
truck depend entirely on word of mouth, and would probably cost
me a lot of tourist business.
So what am I doing? I’m trying to get the law changed. Here’s the
video of this week’s City Council meeting. Relevant ‘Wich, Please
parts start at 5:50 and 23:51.
If you don’t feel like sitting through that video, basically what
happened is this: The Council voted unanimously to add the item
to the agenda for that week. Then, they voted unanimously to
amend the ordinance, to allow for three trucks (including mine!) at
Buoy Park, instead of two, citing a desire to “bring more families
to the park and increase its vibrancy.” Then, they set a public
hearing date for April 13th. This means that if all goes according
to plan (and I think it will), we are looking at an opening date 30
days later, somewhere in the first half of May.
You heard it here first, folks. ‘Wich, Please will be opening in
early May, in Rockland, Maine’s Buoy Park.
Probably.
What else has been happening? Ah, the trailer! The ‘Wich, Please
trailer has spent this horrific winter behind a friend’s barn in
Cushing, where it has had somewhere around 50,000 pounds of
snow dumped on it, making it impossible to access or move.
Thanks to warming temperatures this week (as well as a
neighbor’s commercial tractor, and a ridiculous but effective
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scenario involving lots of bags of rock salt, and daisy-chaining a
Jeep Liberty to a Chevy Silverado 1500, and then to the actual
trailer), I was finally able to dig it out and get inside to start
cleaning and throwing old stuff away. I need to get the junk thrown
away (like the case of individual Coffee-Mate coffee creamers that
had frozen and exploded) so I can start to decide on an
equipment layout, since this needs to be submitted for the health
inspection. I thought you’d want to see the first photos of the
interior, before I get everything cleaned and organized, so here
they are shown below. I also kicked the service window open for
the first time, which was an exciting moment. :)
As you can see, we’ve been able to do so much with the money
we’ve raised so far. We’ve got the truck almost ready to go,
except for a serious deep-cleaning. We’ve bought a van to use as
a tow vehicle and for dry goods storage, like take-out containers
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and staples that don’t need to be refrigerated on the truck. We’re
edging closer to opening day, and we have almost everything we
need to get started.
When I take a hard look at spending needs over the next month,
though, I have to acknowledge that we are a tiny bit short. There
have been some unexpected expenses that have popped up
(including having to pay rent on the Buoy Park location, which is
due up front in advance of the season, needing to buy a second
convection oven and an induction burner, signage, etc.), that I
hoped I would be able to cover using any spare scraps of money
we have. And of course, I could keep spending on the truck
forever (A vinyl graphic wrap! A vertical rotisserie for tacos!). But
even when you strip out all the wish list items, I’m realizing that I
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am still going to need to find another five grand or so, in order to
accomplish all of the essential things I need to before opening
day.
What else is on the to-do list for this month? I’ve got to complete
my tax registration for the state (a daunting, ten-page document
filled with terms I don’t at all understand), as well as get my
Victualer’s license from the city. Then, I’ll need to schedule a
health inspection, as well as get the trailer registered and insured.
I’ve got to scrub the inside of the truck from top to bottom, and
plan any “soft-opening” events.
Then I’ve got to buy a few extra pieces of equipment, buy
inventory, finalize the menu, and find a baker to provide bread for
the truck, as well as set up wholesale accounts for all other
ingredients. Oh, and finish fulfillment of the Kickstarter rewards.
Phew! It’s a lot, but we are moving forward every single day. I
know there are more surprises on the horizon, as we get closer
and closer to launch. Thank you all again so much for all of the
support you have shown me, and for following along with this
story.
Part 6: Straight TCB’in It
It’s been another exciting month, with lots of dramatic, hightension twists and turns, and at least three high-speed pursuits,
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and by “high-speed pursuits” I mean “long city council meetings.”
As we get closer and closer to realizing our food truck dreams
here in Rockland, Maine, I wanted to update you on a few exciting
developments.
First, and most importantly, we managed to convince the
Rockland City Council to amend their current ordinance governing
the number of food vendors allowed in Buoy Park. I know, right?
As you may remember from our previous update, we weren’t
guaranteed a place to park the ‘Wich, Please trailer anywhere
even close to downtown Rockland, because a maximum of two
vendors were allowed in the park. After two months, and thanks to
the efforts of Councilor Louise Maclellan Ruf and everyone on the
Rockland City Council, that ordinance has been changed to allow
for three vendors. Thanks to this change, and thanks to the
wisdom and foresight of our City Council, we will be allowed to set
up shop and start slingin’ sandwiches in a beautiful waterfront
park. The park could turn into a real food truck mecca, as it sits at
the perfect intersection between local and tourist traffic, and I
couldn’t be happier with the outcome. Plus…what a scenic place
to get to spend the Summer!
You can watch the City Council meeting here, and be sure to
check out the dramatic twist ending, where nearly half the Council
(including the Mayor) have to recuse themselves from the vote,
since they were all backers of our original Kickstarter campaign
(parts relevant to ‘Wich, Please begin at 3:40 and 53:30).
Speaking of t-shirts, we’ve decided (based on the success of our
“Back in the Day” campaign), that instead of selling a boring ol’ tshirt with our boring ol’ logo on it, we’ll change them up from time
to time. Each month, we’ll unveil a new limited edition design,
which will only be available for that month and only printed once.
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We haven’t rolled out April’s shirt yet, but keep checking back by
clicking the “Merch” link at the top of the ‘Wich, Please website.
So what’s next? In about a week, I’ll be taking my test to become
a “Certified Food Protection Manager,” a requirement both here in
Maine and for anyone who would like to avoid poisoning their
customers, which is a pretty high priority for me. I’m also meeting
with a couple of wholesalers, to set up suppliers for things like
“bread” and “pork.”
The trailer still needs a health inspection, as well as an inspection
by the Fire Marshall and Code Enforcer. It’s a lot, but we’re still on
target for a mid-May opening day. Keep checking back, and I’ll
keep you in the loop!
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STAGE 2: 17 Lessons Learned After My First
Year in the Food Truck Business
Stage 2 represents lessons I learned after being in business for my
first year. Enjoy!
I opened the doors on ‘Wich, Please for service on May 19, 2015,
without a clue about how the business would work, whether any
customers would be able to find us, whether anyone would like
my food, and only a passing hope that we would earn enough
money to survive our first week.
While we’re still learning more and more about the mobile food
business each and every day, I thought it would be worth laying
out the 16 lessons about this business I have learned so far.
Anyone with experience in foodservice, and particularly the
mobile food truck business, will probably laugh at the degree of
naiveté shown here. Hell, I’ll probably laugh at this post myself,
after I get another year under my belt. My hope, though, is that
the things I’ve learned so far will be useful to anyone that’s
considering indulging in their food truck fantasies, and making the
leap. Here we go:
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1. Navigating city ordinances can be tricky, particularly if
there aren’t already food trucks in your area.
In many areas of the country, food trucks are not only incredibly
popular, well established, and making money hand over fist; they
may even have already reached peak trendiness and begun their
decline. That’s not the case everywhere, though, as I found out in
the months leading up to opening ‘Wich, Please. For example, in my town, some hastily thrown-together mobile
food ordinances had been compiled to address a request from an
entrepreneur hoping to convert a cargo shipping container into a
restaurant, and plunk it in the middle of town. The city council had
to quickly draft a response to this, which unfortunately made
things more difficult for regular food vendors operating out of a
truck or a concession trailer.
In the months leading to our opening day, I learned that our
modest 8×10 trailer couldn’t operate anywhere within the
“downtown zone,” even if I made arrangements with a private
property owner. In order to access this prime piece of our city, the
trailer would have to comply with local “appearance ordinances,”
which would require my trailer to have carved wooden
embellishments around the windows, a brick facade, and other
details that would clearly make no sense for a mobile food unit.
Anyplace I put the trailer outside of the so-called “downtown zone”
would have to have at least 10 parking spaces. And in the one
city-owned park where our food truck WOULD be allowed, local
ordinance allowed for only two food vendors to occupy the space,
meaning I had to petition the city to change the law to allow for a
third vendor. (Which I successfully did, by the way.)
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Does this all sound time consuming? It is. Do you want to be
attending city council meetings and speaking to local government
about changing the laws of an entire town, while your future
hangs in the balance? You do not. Is all of this the last thing you
want to be thinking about, when you’re designing menus, getting
graphics made for the truck, and scrubbing mildew out of the
seals of your refrigeration unit (y’know, the fun stuff)? It is.
The town where I live was, to be fair, super cooperative and
helpful in helping me get my particular mobile food business off
the ground, once they saw that my intentions were good, and that
I could potentially bring more attention to the city as a place for
people who want to come and do business.
But the takeaway is this: Do the research. Talk with someone in
your town’s Code Enforcement office, long, long before you get
rolling outfitting your truck. Make sure that what you want to do is
even possible, within the construct of the (sometimes arcane)
framework of your city’s laws. A little forethought at the beginning
will save you lots of time down the road.
2. The support of your community is vital to your success.
One hundred percent of the success I achieved in my first year on
the food truck was due to the support of my community. One.
hundred. percent. It was community support that allowed me to
change the city ordinances needed to open my truck, where I
wanted to open it. It was community support that ensured we had
a line on opening day, and had customers even when it rained. It
was the enthusiasm of the community, that saw fit to take to social
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media in droves, to write positive reviews on business directory
websites, to share photos of their meals, and help spread the
word of what we were trying to accomplish.
It was community support that gave our customers seemingly
infinite patience, even when we messed up, ran out of food or
propane, took a half an hour to get an order out, opened late,
closed early, or put garlic aioli on something that had no business
being covered in garlic aioli.
Engender goodwill in your community.
Let them know what you’re doing, and
WHY you’re doing it. Invest in them, and
they will invest back in you.
Every single day, we felt like people were happy to see us, eager
to wait in line for their lunch, and that they shared in our
successes. I can’t imagine trying to get a business like this off the
ground without this kind of support, and I am grateful for it every
day. Engender goodwill in your community. Let them know what
you’re doing, and WHY you’re doing it. Invest in them, and they
will invest back in you.
3. Food Safety is Serious and Terrifying
Under Maine law, any restaurant needs to have what’s called a
“Certified Food Protection Manager” on staff, which is a
designation handed down by a company called “ServSafe.”
Because I own ‘Wich, Please, it made sense to me to be the one
to get certified.
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I thought I had a pretty good handle on food safety: Keep cold
food cold, hot food hot, and wash your hands often. There are a
few more things that I learned, though, on that lonely day in that
banquet room of a Hilton in Bangor. Like how one sick employee
with the sniffles can cause an epidemic of sickness that will get
you investigated by the CDC and will destroy your reputation
instantly. Or how it’s not just about how you keep food cool, but
about how QUICKLY you transition cooked food into a chilled,
refrigerated state. Or how, once raw chicken has touched any
surface, the safest measure is to burn the entire building to the
ground.
Through a day’s classroom instruction, I came to view stock
footage of diners happily munching away in a restaurant not as
happy scenes of friendship, romance, and camaraderie, but as
dark, moody prologues to invisible crimes against the public
health, like an “America’s Most Wanted” reenactment with a
sashimi course.
And you know what? That’s good. Because food safety is a big
deal. Playing fast and loose with food handling is the quickest and
most surefire way to put your business out of business.
4. A rather large portion of the work is disgusting, and the
hours can be tremendously long, with tons of running
around like a crazy person.
That moment when you pass a taco out your service window, and
your customer beams, an ear-to-ear grin of anticipation flickering
across his hungry face? It’s awesome. But it’s also a very small
part of your day.
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A lot of the work is, well, pretty gross. Ever see the sludge that
gets collected in the bottom of a forty pound deep fryer after you
run it for two days without a crumb-catcher? Ever wonder how
you’re going to get that sludge out of there? Or what happens to
all of your wastewater from dishes, after you pump it out of the
holding tank on your truck? Or the room-filling odors that can be
created by losing a single raw slice of potato behind a
refrigerator? What about handling dozens of lipstick-and-grease
smeared napkins that have been used by strangers, are you into
that? The fact is, a lot of the work in restaurants is pretty
disgusting (and that’s without even considering some of the
unique problems that food truck owners can face).
And that’s when everything is running smoothly! The actual hours
that you are in service make up just a small portion of your
workday. Because many vendors won’t deliver to you without a
physical address, or because your order quantities are so small,
you’re driving around to a lot of your suppliers to pick things up.
PLUS, there’s no predicting what is going to sell the most
successfully from day to day, and you don’t have room to store a
lot of product, so you’re constantly running out of things and
having to restock at the supermarket, which is hellish on your food
costs. Factor in prep time, cleanup time, and shopping time, not to
mention last minute runs for things like propane, or unforeseen
problems like your hood exhaust fan breaking down, and a four
hour lunch service pretty quickly turns into an 8-10 hour day. It
can produce an incredible adrenaline rush, or it can just make you
want to lie down. Or sometimes both.
5. Fewer vendors = happier food trucker
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This is kind of a continuation of my last point above, and it’s
probably a no-brainer for anyone with any experience in this
business. But if you can narrow the number of suppliers you use,
you can drastically simplify your life (not to mention your
bookkeeping). For example, at one point, we had a sandwich
menu that used six different types of bread. The rye and the
sourdough were easy; they came from a commercial bakery and
could be picked up with 48 hours notice. One of the sandwiches
used a special roll that I had custom baked at a nearby specialty
bakery. One of the other rolls I used could only be found at the
supermarket, and they wouldn’t give me the name of their
supplier, so I had to buy off-the-shelf at retail, and with scarce and
unreliable availability. The same was true with a third type of roll,
which I purchased from a different chain retailer. And finally, I
found a special pita that was only available through one of my
wholesalers.
Could I have saved myself from having
a six month long, ambulatory heart
attack? Definitely.
Do you see the problem here? I was buying bread (BREAD!) from
five (FIVE!) different suppliers. That’s five trips across town, on
different days, on different bakery schedules. Five invoices to file.
Five checks to write. And that was before I had assembled ANY
OF THE OTHER INGREDIENTS THAT GO ON A SANDWICH.
This is entirely my own fault, and is partly because I am nothing
short of obsessed with finding the right vehicle for the right
ingredients.
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Bread is a very big deal, you guys. But if I had thought it through,
planned ahead more, MIGHT I have been able to design a menu
that had ingredients that overlapped a little more? Made some
concessions on which bread got used on which sandwich? Been
a little flexible? Narrowed that list of vendors down to one or two?
Probably. Could I have saved myself from having a six month
long, ambulatory heart attack? Definitely.
When designing your menu, ask yourself: Am I maximizing the
way that a small amount of ingredients can be used in a wide
range of dishes?
6. It’s easy to spend ridiculous amounts of money on the
best product, but that’s not the point
I’ve spent years, on the very pages of writing this blog, lambasting
businesses for not using better product. “Why aren’t they buying
better bread,” I breathlessly opined, or “Don’t they know that if
they make their own tortillas, they’ll have a product superior to
everything else that’s out there?”
What I learned this year is: Of course they do. Almost every
business in the world knows better. They understand that if they
spend top dollar buying the best product, they’ll have a better
result. But that’s a ridiculous oversimplification that doesn’t take
into account any other aspect of how difficult it is to run this
business.
Ideally, every business should be buying exclusively small-batch
produce from the farmer’s market. Locally-raised chicken and
pork from the farm down the street. Artisan cheeses. Bread
lovingly kneaded by hand, produced from the spent grains of a
brewing process whispered over by celibate monks.
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I am not, by any means, advocating for
going full-Sysco.
Unfortunately, this will result in a sandwich that costs $30 and that
no one can reasonably afford to buy. The best ingredients may
often
equal the best product, sure, but you have to be selective about
where you spend money, in order to keep the cost at a level that’s
attractive to consumers. And THAT’S the point I missed, when I
wrote those snarky reviews about ham italians back in 2010.
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I am not, by any means, advocating for going full-Sysco. Or even
partial-Sysco. Heavens no. But you have to learn to spend money
were it makes sense to spend money, and find an acceptable
substitute where it doesn’t. Identify the ingredients on your menu
that will suffer the most greatly, by buying what may not be your
first choice in product, from a national distributor or chain.
For example, I will spend any amount of money on bread. It’s that
important. I will also buy bacon from Curtis Custom Meats, a local
butcher, because it features prominently in several of our
sandwiches and is better than any bacon I have ever tasted. Our
seafood will come from Jess’s, a local fishmonger, even though it
may be cheaper to buy from some sketchball off the back of a
truck.
But can I buy things like swiss cheese, mayonnaise, fryer oil, and
some produce from a big wholesaler? You betcha, and doing so
will help keep my food affordable and approachable, while
sacrificing very, very little in terms of quality. Finding this balance,
figuring out where to spend money and where not to spend
money, is key to the success of any food business. The sooner
you can figure it out, the better.
7. There are tons and tons of hidden costs, that may not have
been a part of your business plan
You know that outfitting a truck or trailer is going to be expensive.
And you know you’ll have to pay for food, electricity, propane, and
probably rent. But have you factored in the cost for a victualer’s
license from the state? Did you know that you’ll probably need
one at the city level, as well? Did you know that you’ll need to pay
for a food safety certification course, as well as a permit from the
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health inspector? How about insurance? You’ll need both
insurance on your actual equipment, plus liability insurance in
case (god forbid) somebody gets sick after eating at your
restaurant. Planning to bring your truck to special events or
festivals? Each of them will charge a fee. What about water?
Trash? Wastewater disposal (and hauling)? Fryer oil recycling?
How about disposables? Every paper tray, napkin, straw, fork,
spoon, knife, portion cup, or tray liner you pass out your window
costs money, and it adds up quickly. Packets of ketchup for fries?
Sugar for coffee (not to mention creamer, lids, cups, and those
little stirrer straws) all add to your cost. And what about cleaning
up? Paper towels, laundry service, dish soap, hand soap,
sterilizing solution, test strips all add to your bottom line, and are
all things that many people (including us!) overlook when first
trying to figure out feasibility for a mobile food business.
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8. Time passes in a very weird way, and you need to be very
comfortable with whoever you’re working with.
Here in Maine, we take our summers very seriously. We usually
average about four months, where not only is it warm enough to
enjoy being outside, but the days are long enough that we don’t
feel like stringing up every time the sun goes down at three in the
afternoon and our lives plunge again into total darkness.
I didn’t consider, really, how strange it would be to spend these
few precious months in an 8×10 metal box with a 21 year old kid
that I only kind of knew. We averaged 55 hour weeks (more
during festivals, but I’ll get to that later), watching the world go by
from our tiny service window, taking time to step outside into the
bright sunshine, warm air, and blue skies only when the 125
degree -plus temperatures inside the truck became too hard to
bear.
Long hours + cramped conditions + hard work + stress led to
Nick, my helper, and I becoming pretty close. We listened to a
LOT of DMX. We experimented with battering and frying almost
anything you can think of. We had high-level discussions about
music, love, life, and loss, all while maintaining a tone of mutual
respect and desire to Get the Job Done. But we were lucky.
Consider very carefully who you employ to work the truck with
you, because chances are, you’re going to have to become very
friendly, very quickly. And consider, also, that you’re going to
effectively miss the season that a lot of people live for.
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9. The large festivals are not the answers to your financial
future
Here in Maine, we have a few big festivals each summer, which I
considered a vital part of my business plan. The North Atlantic
Blues Festival, the Maine Lobster Festival, and the Maine Boats,
Homes, and Harbors show bring a combined tens of thousands of
visitors to our small town each summer, and I was certain that a
presence at these shows would be my ticket to a week or two of
virtually printing money.
That’s not exactly how it worked out. We are lucky to have
developed a loyal following among locals. But unfortunately, most
of the locals have a tendency to stay away during the big
festivals, citing “traffic” and “tourists” as a reason to avoid coming
downtown. What’s more, some festivals are ticketed, which
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means that your local regulars won’t even be able to get to you,
without buying a ticket to the show.
But that shouldn’t matter, with your thousands of new, fresh,
hungry faces, right?
Not so much. The North Atlantic Blues Festival, for example, was
an event that attracted thousands and thousands of visitors for a
day of scorching sunshine, day drinking, and endless, repetitive,
noodling blues guitar riffs. We had, perhaps, our worst week of
the season. We did simply no business. What’s worse, we had
WAY over prepped, spending entirely too much money on way too
much product, to feed the hungry masses that never came. It was
a waste of time, money, and effort. We lost money, that weekend.
We didn’t fare much better at the Lobster Festival, a week-long
nationally-recognized event that we paid $500 in vendor fees to
attend. My logic was simple: 10,000 hungry people equals crazy
profit, right? Again, things didn’t really work out that way. Most of
the crowd was there to eat either lobster, or horrible, standardissue fair food, like italian sausages of questionable origin, or fried
wads of dough covered in powdered sugar.
Our little fussy sandwich wagon just didn’t make sense to people.
The festival also required us to be open for all of the hours that
the festival was open, which meant a 90 hour week, more or
less.* When all was said and done, we broke even. If, that is, you
consider not being able to pay yourself anything, “breaking even.”
*I had attended the Lobster Festival several times, in past years. I had never, however,
attended the ENTIRE Lobster Festival. That changes a man, man.
The takeaway? Festivals aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, and
may even make you lose money, when all is said and done.
Beware of vendor fees, and consider your product and how it
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relates to a fair-going crowd. Finally, think about what losing your
most local customers for a week will mean for your business. For
us? Participation in the big festivals and fairs probably isn’t going
to make much sense again this year.*
*Except for the Maine Boats, Homes, and Harbors show. That thing is a monster
money-maker, with a really friendly staff, a great atmosphere for food-lovers, reasonable
hours, and a wonderful crowd of new customers.
10. Towing a food trailer is a pain, and will make you
reluctant to take lucrative catering jobs. Consider a step van
for your food truck.
Do you know how to tow things? I don’t. I’m 100% terrible at it.
Even though I understand, intellectually, the way I am supposed
to spin the steering wheel to make the trailer hypothetically go
where I need it to go, backing a trailer up always results in the
trailer being jackknifed just outside my driver’s-side window. It’s
baffling, and practice doesn’t seem to be improving my skills in
this area, even a little.
Also, did you know how heavy these things are? My trailer, fully
loaded, weighs somewhere around 7,000 pounds, which puts it
well outside of the towing capacity for my Jeep.
Because of my total lack of both towing skill and suitable
equipment for towing, that means I almost always have to either
ask a friend to tow for me, or worse, hire someone to do it. This
isn’t a big deal for most of the summer, since we tend to park in
one place, and don’t have to break the trailer down and move it
each night. But it does mean that the hundreds of inquiries I
receive about doing catering jobs for weddings, job fairs, or
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joining food truck festivals mostly have to be declined, since
moving the trailer is, for me, an enormous pain.
Can you imagine how great it must be to have a bonafied kitchen
built into an old step van, where you can just jump behind the
wheel and move your whole operation, any time you’d like,
without jacking up, hooking up to a trailer, connecting tow lights,
etc.? Man. Those guys have it made.
11. Storage is always an issue, and is costly, since you can’t
store full cases of product.
Space. Space, space, space, SPACE. A total lack of space is
something that you’ll constantly be doing battle with. In our 8×10
trailer, we have four wall-mounted shelves, a three-door reach-in
refrigerator, and two under-counter display fridges, PLUS a freestanding mini-fridge with freezer to contain the overflow. Seems
like a ton of space, right? It’s not. The two display fridges, for
example, contain only beverages. The three-door fridge does the
bulk of our heavy lifting, storage-wise, with the mini combo fridge/
freezer accepting anything that’s left. But we still have bread,
condiments, all of our disposables, and more, all needing space
that we simply don’t have. Last year, we bought a giant
Rubbermaid deck box and freestanding cabinet, to handle some
of the overflow. It’s still not enough.
Most frustrating, not to mention costly? Unlike a restaurant, who
usually has a large walk-in refrigerator, maybe a walk-in freezer,
and ample room for dry storage, we can never buy full cases of
product. This is not only inconvenient, but it’s hell on our food
costs, since buying product in partial cases is always more
expensive.
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It also creates a pretty significant inventory problem, since you
never know what is going to sell the most on a given day. That
means we usually carry pretty small quantities of everything,
making it so if there’s a run on a particular item, we will almost
certainly run out and have to make an emergency trip to the store
to get more. It’s expensive, and it contributes to the sense of
urgent, anxious chaos that can make running a food truck so
mentally and physically exhausting.
[The lack of space] is not only
inconvenient, but it’s hell on our food
costs, since buying product in partial
cases is always more expensive.
12. Social media prowess is the key to marketing your food
truck
I can never understand it, when I see anyone in the food business
(or almost any business, for that matter) ignoring their social
media presence. For restaurants, and particularly for food trucks,
a strong, coordinated attack across as many social media
channels as you can manage, can make all the difference in the
world.
Why? Active participation in social media gets your message to
your customers where they live. In other words, people are
comfortable and at ease, when they’re checking out their
Facebook or their Instagram feeds. Chances are, they’ve opted in
to following your page or profile, and are interested in what you
want to say. Sharing photos of your food, or your latest location
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(for mobile units), answering questions, or nearly any other realtime interaction lets your customers know that you’re paying
attention to their needs, while providing shareable content and
encouraging them to share their relationship with you, the next
“cool” brand, with their friends. It takes just a few minutes, several
times per day, and is a worthwhile way to connect with your
customers in a meaningful way.
[Proper use of social media] lets your
customers know that you’re paying
attention to their needs.
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I’ll take it a step further: If you’re considering any room in your
budget for radio, print, or television advertisements, and you’re in
the mobile food business, skip those old models, and divert those
resources into a few paid social media campaigns, instead. You’ll
get better results, and detailed reporting that actually allows you
to measure those results.
So what’s the magic formula? Establish Facebook, Twitter, and
Instagram profiles. Maybe a Pinterest account, if you’ve got time.
Post to Facebook 2x per day, Twitter 4x per day, and Instagram
1-2x per day. Post to Pinterest as much as you have time for.
Make sure that only around 20% of your content is selfpromotional, with the bulk of your posts made up of sharing
exciting, audience-specific content from other sources. Actually, if
you can keep your posts to around 50% self-promotional, you’re
doing better than most.
Follow others. Engage in conversations. Why? Imagine if a
stranger ran into the room right now and screamed, “OUR
SPECIAL TODAY IS ALL-BEEF CHORIZO CHILI DOGS AND $2
PBR TALL BOYS,” then wheeled around and ran back out before
you had a chance to respond. That’s how “run and gun” selfpromotional social media posts feel to your visitors. Talk to them,
instead. Respond. Answer questions. Thank them for following
you.
There you go. Go start your own social media marketing
consultancy. I’ll be over here, making sandwiches.
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13. If your motivations are sound, there is no more rewarding
and satisfying business to be in.
As our regular readers know, I’ve spent most of my career cooped
up in a cubicle, developing early-onset carpal tunnel and nerve
damage by slouching in my seat and clicking on a mouse all day.
And I’ve been luckier than most; I’ve happened to work for some
pretty cool companies, on projects that have gotten good
response from the public. I have never, however, achieved the
level of job satisfaction that I enjoy each day, working on my food
truck.
Do you like it when your barely-qualified middle manager boss
gives you a pat on the back for a job well done? Run your food
truck well, and you’ll enjoy real-time positive feedback, all day,
every day. Times x1000. Do a good job, and you can count on a
line of people outside your window every day, each person happy
to be there, a smile on their face as they look forward to what you
pass through your service window.
Making good food for a receptive bunch of customers is one of
the most rewarding things in the world. Good food makes people
happy. Hearing someone tell you that your garlic aioli is one of
their favorite things to eat in town is one of the best feelings I’ve
ever had.
There’s also a lot to be said for the physical aspects of the job. At
the end of the day, you’re tired. Tired, hot, sweaty, and probably in
possession of a much different overall odor, than you started the
day with. But you can also look at your stack of tickets, and say,
“Well, godamn. No wonder I’m tired. I made 130 sandwiches (or
tacos, or burgers, or whatever) in two hours.” It’s a tangible, real
thing, that for me, feels much better than any minor
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accomplishments I may have had pushing pixels around on a
glowing computer screen.
By nature, I’m a bit of an introvert. Not attending functions and
ignoring invitations from friends are some of my favorite things to
do. However, I’ve found that I LOVE talking to my customers,
finding out what they like and dislike, sharing tips about other
places to eat, learning about where they’re from, a place from
back home that they love, etc. This job has, in a lot of ways, kind
of reminded me how much I really like and trust most people.
Sounds hyperbolic, I know. But it’s the truth.
14. BUT…there are a few bad apples out there, and you have
to be prepared for that.
Serving food to customers who are into what you’re trying to
accomplish with your food truck is tons of fun, sure. There are,
however, a few bad apples in the bunch, customers whose
behavior is so bizarre and downright hateful, that you almost don’t
know how to react or what to do with yourself. A few examples:
Sometimes, when gathering the garbage, I would find nearly
whole sandwiches tossed away. If serving people who like your
food is one of the best feelings in the world, this can be one of the
worst. I was overcome with panic. What had gone wrong? Why
did this customer hate a sandwich that so many other people
seemed to like? Why didn’t they say something to me about it, so
I could have made them something else?* It’s a terrible feeling,
and incidents like these are tough (for me, at least,) to shake off.
*Not being given the chance to fix something that is wrong with your food is one of the
worst feelings in the world. People, please: If you are out at a restaurant or food truck
and you order something you hate, tell someone about it, so they can try to make it
right.
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Not everyone is going to like what you’re doing. I’ll never forget
the drunk girl from Lewiston, who waited in line for the truck for a
few minutes to order a taco.
We were serving Mexican street-style tacos, with beautifully
braised pork, an achiote and citrus marinade, with some quickpickled red onions, habanero, and crumbled queso fresco. When I
explained the options, she proclaimed to everyone else in line,
“Oh, I’m all set, that ain’t no f*ckin’ taco,” before turning and
storming off.
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14. BUT…there are a few bad apples out there, and you have
to be prepared for that.
Serving food to customers who are into what you’re trying to
accomplish with your food truck is tons of fun, sure. There are,
however, a few bad apples in the bunch, customers whose
behavior is so bizarre and downright hateful, that you almost don’t
know how to react or what to do with yourself. A few examples:
Sometimes, when gathering the garbage, I would find nearly
whole sandwiches tossed away. If serving people who like your
food is one of the best feelings in the world, this can be one of the
worst. I was overcome with panic. What had gone wrong? Why
did this customer hate a sandwich that so many other people
seemed to like? Why didn’t they say something to me about it, so
I could have made them something else?* It’s a terrible feeling,
and incidents like these are tough (for me, at least,) to shake off.
*Not being given the chance to fix something that is wrong with your food is one of the
worst feelings in the world. People, please: If you are out at a restaurant or food truck
and you order something you hate, tell someone about it, so they can try to make it
right.
Not everyone is going to like what you’re doing. I’ll never forget
the drunk girl from Lewiston, who waited in line for the truck for a
few minutes to order a taco. We were serving Mexican street-style
tacos, with beautifully braised pork, an achiote and citrus
marinade, with some quick-pickled red onions, habanero, and
crumbled queso fresco. When I explained the options, she
proclaimed to everyone else in line, “Oh, I’m all set, that ain’t no
f*ckin’ taco,” before turning and storming off.
Or what about the guy that seemed normal, even chatting with my
helper and I as we were cooking his sandwich, who calmly took
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the finished product from the window, removed the top slice of
bread, and in a single motion, swept every vegetable off of his
sandwich, and onto the ground in front of the truck?
Or how about when people reach into your service window to
leave a crumpled wad of dollar bills on the counter, without
waiting to hear the total and without handing you money like a
human being, forcing you to stop and scrounge around like a
grateful serf being tossed a few pity schillings in the middle of an
otherwise busy service?* Or when, even worse, someone arches
the entire top part of their torso into your small space to have a
look around and offer unsolicited opinions on your operation?
*Seriously, don’t do this. We’re not your servants. We just
want to make you a sandwich.
If you’re lucky, these people will be few and far between. But it’s
good to remember that, despite your very best efforts, sometimes
people are just going to be bizarre. It can be hard to have a thick
skin, especially when the very act of cooking food you believe in
can be so intensely personal. The same qualities that make you
passionate about the product you’re serving, can make taking
criticism difficult. I’m still learning not to hyper-focus on the few
negative comments I may receive on a given day, and instead try
to enjoy the mostly positive feedback.
15. Five pounds of chicken skins are a f*ck of a lot of chicken
skins
Sometimes, there are missteps. That’s part of learning, right? On
our truck, I always try to identify the part of each dish that makes
it awesome and craveable, and then just amp up that one element
to ridiculous levels. If the good part of a cheeseburger is the crust
on the burger and the melty cheese, then do three thin patties that
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are each crispy and craggy on the outside, and lay nutritionallyvoid American cheese on each one. If people like buffalo wings
because they’re spicy, make them with ghost chiles. And if we can
all agree that the best part of fried chicken is the crispy skin, why
not make a chicken sandwich with, I don’t know, three or four
times more skin than it should have?
That was the plan, when we first added a fried chicken sandwich
to our menu. I drove out to Mainely Poultry, our local poultry
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farmer, to make arrangements for the processor to set aside the
chicken skins that they removed for the boneless/skinless breasts
they shipped to the supermarket. Not knowing how much an
individual chicken skin weighed (as I’m sure you can imagine, the
answer is “next to nothing”), I requested five pounds.
The delivery was appalling. Gruesome, even. Two plastic
supermarket-sized bags of white, wiggly chicken skins awaited
me, a jaw-dropping, nauseating wad of crumpled, tangled flesh
that I couldn’t begin to figure out how to deal with. We fried a few
off for a snack, and scrapped the rest (as well as immediately set
to work reconceptualizing our chicken sandwich).
16. Making the leap to brick-and-mortar may not be for
everybody
For me, the ‘Wich, Please truck at first felt a lot like a proof-ofconcept. The path to brick-and-mortar seemed simple: Figure out
if people like my food. Find out if I can scale up production to cook
it for lots and lots of people. Use mad profits to open traditional
restaurant, retaining concession trailer for catering jobs. Profit!
At the end of the 2015 season, I was very lucky to be approached
by a local restaurant, who was using their beautiful, wellappointed restaurant space only for dinner service, leaving the
restaurant empty at midday. We quickly made a deal, wherein we
would pay a base rent and a percentage of profits, in order to
operate our food truck out of a more traditional venue.
For us, it was a no-brainer: A chance to cook in a real kitchen
after a cramped summer on the truck, have a fixed location, and a
place to stay warm for the winter, without taking the risk of
opening our own place.
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As with the truck itself, however, there are unforeseen
complications to operating out of a brick-and-mortar space, that
may make the transition not make sense for everyone. For
example, your overhead increases dramatically and quickly.
The savings you may enjoy by moving
away from cardboard trays and
disposable cups, can be quickly eaten
up by hiring a dishwasher, who will
break at least one thing that you own,
every day.
Unlike the truck or trailer, which you probably own outright, there
is suddenly rent and additional utilities to contend with. A larger
space probably means you’ll need to hire a staff, or as they are
more commonly known in the restaurant business, “a collection of
unhinged personalities intent on destroying each other’s very
souls, over such life-and-death issues as tip pooling and sidework and ‘that one time I took your brunch shift even though you
NEVER take one of my shifts even when I really need the night off
for one of my perpetual family emergencies, you whore.'”
The savings you may enjoy by moving away from cardboard trays
and disposable cups, can be quickly eaten up by hiring a
dishwasher, who will break at least one thing that you own, every
day, because he’s addicted to opiates. The dishwasher, by the
way, will silently loathe everyone else in the kitchen, as will the
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servers, who will also hate each other. And you. And no, they
won’t be able to work on Tuesday.*
*These weren’t my experiences, mind you. Let me be very clear.
I’m speaking in broad, sweeping generalizations for the sake of
ha-ha-has.
The nice thing about a small concession trailer is that it’s all
yours. It’s 100% under your control. Chances are, you can reach
from one end of it to the other to get something you need, without
taking more than a step or two. It is utterly, completely under your
own control. You alone are responsible for the success or failure
of the business, and you have none of the complications
of managing an increased staff, the burden of additional,
expensive equipment that is constantly breaking down, or
relationships with partners to manage. A food truck, with all of its
unique complications and challenges, is still much, much simpler
to manage on your own, than a full-fledged restaurant.
After the restaurant I was partnered with saw a major, abrupt
change in management and ultimately failed, taking our fledgling
lunch service along with it, I began to rethink my goals for the
business. Maybe brick-and-mortar isn’t the be-all, end-all goal of
starting a food truck. Maybe it makes more sense to keep the
business small, with low overhead, where you can take the time
to make the food you really want to make, at a smaller scale,
while you learn to really refine the business model to extract
maximum profit out of every day. Maybe the goal of owning a food
truck should be to learn to be really, really good at owning a food
truck. And maybe that’s enough.
For me, as I enter our second year, and no doubt start to collect
my 2017 list of “16 NEW Lessons I Learned,” that’s where I’m
devoting my focus. I’m going to keep cooking the food that makes
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my customers happy, keep enjoying their smiles as I pass food
out the window, the adrenaline rush of a busy service (and the
crushing depression that follows a slow night), and keep refining
those details of the business that may not come so naturally, in an
effort to keep doing this job that I really love, for as long as
possible.
17.) Find a mentor. Exchange ideas and experience. Trust
someone.
Last, but certainly not least, you’re going to need help and a support
system when launching your business.
This lesson can be summed up thusly: "Don't try to reinvent the wheel."
Chances are, you know someone (or can meet someone) who already
has tons of experience in the food industry, whether that's a restaurant
owner that you're friendly with, someone that has a successful food
truck, or even someone that's an expert in home canning and
preservation. Don't be afraid (or too proud) to use those resources. When
you have a problem or a question, there is almost ALWAYS someone
that can point you in the right direction.
For example, I have a friend who owns a lobster roll truck, and her
advice and information has proven invaluable (and saved me from
making costly mistakes) many, many times. When I have a question
about local food trends, or ways to increase efficiency in the kitchen, I
talk to another friend of mine, who owns a restaurant in the area. In each
case, I've found that people who know what they are doing, and are
confident in their business, are happy to share what they know with you.
It's up to you to ask, and to listen.
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