I was in the a restaurant business for 30 years and in the last 10 years I did a open air food stand at 2 area fairs, two weeks apart. I totally loved it and did quite well. At fairs food trailers can get more money for what they would normally at a restaurant. Because I was local I kept my prices at a fair rate which other venders did not like at all. There was no way I was going to rob my customers that also patronized my restaurant. My menu was quite large only because we could go back & forth to my restaurant to get prep & supplies. I had employee's from my restaurant work, in fact they begged to work the stand. It was a lot of work to set up & tear down an open air stand. We would rent a tent and haul our equipment in. We had 2 sides of the tent set up like a walk up bar, one side with a portable salad bar we used as a Taco topping Bar & the entire back half of the tent was the kitchen. My biggest seller were several different taco items. Lots of deep fried foods, 1/3 burgers that we would precook & stage in Trio Ajus (awesome burgers), hot beefs on a bun, a heated sub sandwich that was a good seller at my restaurant & a few other quick items. The key is to have quick ready to serve foods for the rushes. I was always searching for a used food truck that I could drive up, plugged in and be ready to go. There are tons of used ones out there but I wasn't ready to take on a payment, insurance, up keep & storage of the trailer when not in use. Six months after I sold my restaurant I needed to find something to do. Because I had a blast doing the fairs & I know there can be good money to be made if done right, I started to design a brand new concession trailer with a company in Florida. For some reason I always did things BIG back then, I'm over BIG these days. Fact is keep it small with a few good food items, less labor, less work, less waste, better service and you will make more money. We designed a 38ft. concession trailer with 3 deep fryers, a grill, a sandwich refrigeration unit, a steam table, built in mics, sinks, airconditioner. plenty of breakers and large gas tanks.....the works. We completed the design and I was about to order it when I felt a bit nervous. Figured I better see what type of events I could get in to. There is Country Fests and Rock Fests all summer long with in a couple hours of me. After calling several surrounding events & fair commissions. Everyone but one were not taking on any more food vendors and I could get on a list with several others ahead of me. Only events available were 250 - 300/400 miles away with several more restrictions and licensing's. After rethinking the investment, being gone every weekend, the chance of the excitement wearing off & it becoming old very quick and a couple women maneuvering a 38ft. trailer in large cities I came to my senses after my husband said to me, "Why don't you start a small sub shop downtown, everybody love your subs". So my girl friend and I started looking around for an empty building. We found a location and the landlord offered us the entire building for reasonable rent. Needless to say, after we put our brilliant minds together and a lot of hard work getting it planned out & put together, seven years later I still own a large Pub & Grub with a bigger then needed menu. The person that spent weeks designing the 38ft. trailer was a bit upset. I absolutely feel today it was the better decision. Most Concession trailers only run on the week ends and where I live we have Winter 6 months out of the year. Maybe will consider a food trailer in my retirement days. Moral of my story.....think long and hard about the commitments, go to the library and get a book about restaurant percentages and obligations & be prepared to give up weekends until you can afford to loose the money that you will need to live and pay all bills. All bills need to be paid before you make a dime. Start off with something small and less overhead and if you work hard and serve good food there is good money to be made.

You guys are wonderful people with a lot of precious information, well done 👏 👍 👍

Exactly the information I was looking for! Thanks!

Good job team thanks for the valuable information for the starter food truck 👍👍👍👌👌👌

This was so helpful to me! I really liked how pretty much any question I had, the host asked! I’m excited to check out the Orlando entrepreneur center too that’s going to be so helpful as well. I really appreciate this video being made and posted! Thanks so much!

very informative. hopefully this board can go on for continuous years and updates. i noticed there was a 2012 video as well.

Gold mine! Thank you

Long, but pretty insightful. The host brought up very good topics of discussion

I am thinking about a new type of restaurants : eating-spots, in eating-spots, food keeps changing, chefs also rotate this is opposed to current restaurants, thanks to this rotation of food and chefs, eating-spots are way more powerful than restaurants, along with that, there is an app, people vote for the food that will be cooked in the next days, menu is influenced by the live input of the people via an app

It's been 9 year since this was published. I wonder what these people would say differently today.

This was some really very good information as it speaks to all different types of aspects and avenues that raise lots and lots of issues to persons just starting out or thinking seriously about starting a food truck business. Although your panel had some excellent advice and pros and cons that can and will happen at some point, I like that they were very, very encouraging in not wanting someone who may not be doing so well at any given time to give up on themselves because they are having some rough times. I absolutely loved that about all of the guests on the panel even the city planner guy. With all of that said, I am one of the start up persons who has no money, and bad credit but I have one hec of a product, and I'm wondering if you could go more in-depth as to writing a business plan and also being a private business as opposed to a public business.and please do go into as much detail as possible please! I don't know squat about doing no business plan nor about permits, licenses, etc needed to run a food truck business, especially how to target my market... HELPPPPPPPPPP PLEASEEEEE! Oh! One more thing, how much was your start-up cost and were yall scared as hell, and if so, how did you get past that?

good job!

Love u all ty

Good information

need u in Texas

I'm starting a food truck do you have to have a base of operation in order to start a food truck. Meaning at end of the day where do you take the truck.

Wow. No selling on the street? That's going to strangle the food truck scene. They're really going to have to give a lot of thought on the "sanctioned food truck area". Update : Just read that Yum Yum Cupcakes ceased operations. Looks like Florida killed them. It's all about those chains.

the yum yum guy says "you know" every other word, whats up with that?

they need to find a new announcer/leader