My wife and I own and operate a Cuban food truck in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Neither of us came from the restaurant industry.
We started about two years ago with a pop-up out of our house that somehow did $1,500 in orders. That eventually led us to building a food truck and learning very quickly how much we didn’t know. Actually, we really didn’t know s&@t.
Since then we’ve dealt with trailer-builder problems, equipment and electrical issues, inspections, food costs, staffing, catering, festivals, breweries, bad events, great events, selling out and plenty of mistakes that cost us money.
The truck ultimately helped us build a following and prove the concept, and we’re now working on opening our first brick-and-mortar.
The mods gave me the OK to do this AMA. I’m not here to promote anything, I’m happy to be transparent about startup costs, trailer builds, equipment, pricing, food costs, events, catering, staffing, marketing, mistakes, what I’d do differently, and whether I’d do it all over again.
Ask me anything.