First of all, no matter what you think is in there, there’s probably more. Most modern food trucks — at least the ones special enough to make it into your regular lunch rotation — are operated by serious foodies whose wheeled restaurants roam more than 300 U.S. cities as part of a $2.7 billion industry. They’re often veteran chefs who are used to the amenities of commercial kitchens or entrepreneurial home cooks who demand the perfect tools.
None of these folks are willing to compromise on equipment, even if it all has to fit, Tetris-like, into the space of a large minivan.
First in: The basics
Before a new food truck owner can shop for the perfect griddle or pizza oven, they have to figure out how much room is left after they pencil in the equipment required by their jurisdiction.
These basic requirements are similar around the country, according to Jason Tipton, co-owner of East Coach Mobile Business Launchpad, which has outfitted more than 400 food trucks in his Manassas shop over the past decade. [ed. See annoying graphic.]
Fortunately, not all of that takes up valuable kitchen space. Water tanks are often stored below the truck, and generators sometimes ride shotgun in the cab. Fire suppression and ventilation are built into the hood and ceiling. After these basics, owners are limited only by their budgets and their ability to shoehorn their culinary visions into a space as small as 70 square feet.
A small budget and a big oven
Start-up costs for a food truck average about $100,000, far lower than the several hundred thousand required for even a tiny brick-and-mortar place in the D.C. area, Tipton said. Some trucks get on the road for far less.
“When I was a kid, I’d eat cookies until there weren’t any more cookies,” said Kirk Francis, who began baking as a 4-year-old with his mom. He had supplied cookies to a local coffee shop before deciding to bring chocolate chips (and fresh milk, of course) to the masses.
His budget was just $30,000 for the entire truck, and he wanted to make sure his cookies were baked fresh at the curb.
So he found a used, 625-pound Vulcan convection oven on Craigslist, stuck it into a 1988 Washington Post delivery van that he bought for $2,400, and Captain Cookie and the Milkman was born.
The truck is small — the 6-foot-1 Francis has maybe an inch of clearance when he stands inside — but the commercial oven is about twice the size of a normal kitchen oven and can bake 120 cookies at once, or 720 in an hour. Francis estimates that it has baked more than a million cookies since he launched the truck in 2012.
Francis now owns four Captain Cookie trucks, a food hall and a brick-and-mortar shop, so he has seen many sides of the business. He said trucks can be inspected a dozen or more times a year, much more often than most restaurants. And while the trucks have lower overhead costs and are more profitable — owners worry about potholes and parking tickets but not leases and rent — trucks are also less predictable.
Francis told all this to a culinary arts class at D.C. Central Kitchen on a frigid March day when steady rain and umbrella-shredding wind had kept most trucks off the road. When it’s raining, truck operators say, sales go down by half compared with a sunny day. When it’s cold and raining, sales drop to a quarter.
The cookie truck’s motor coughed and died as Francis pulled into the parking lot, and after the class of cooks-in-training checked out the truck and sampled cookies, he had to wait in the rain for a tow truck.
“You have to be able to roll with it,” he said, shrugging. “I never have to worry about the store breaking down by the side of the road.”
by Bonnie Berkowitz, Seth Blanchard, Aaron Steckelberg and Monica Ulmanu, WaPo | Read more:
None of these folks are willing to compromise on equipment, even if it all has to fit, Tetris-like, into the space of a large minivan.
First in: The basics
Before a new food truck owner can shop for the perfect griddle or pizza oven, they have to figure out how much room is left after they pencil in the equipment required by their jurisdiction.These basic requirements are similar around the country, according to Jason Tipton, co-owner of East Coach Mobile Business Launchpad, which has outfitted more than 400 food trucks in his Manassas shop over the past decade. [ed. See annoying graphic.]
Fortunately, not all of that takes up valuable kitchen space. Water tanks are often stored below the truck, and generators sometimes ride shotgun in the cab. Fire suppression and ventilation are built into the hood and ceiling. After these basics, owners are limited only by their budgets and their ability to shoehorn their culinary visions into a space as small as 70 square feet.
A small budget and a big oven
Start-up costs for a food truck average about $100,000, far lower than the several hundred thousand required for even a tiny brick-and-mortar place in the D.C. area, Tipton said. Some trucks get on the road for far less.
“When I was a kid, I’d eat cookies until there weren’t any more cookies,” said Kirk Francis, who began baking as a 4-year-old with his mom. He had supplied cookies to a local coffee shop before deciding to bring chocolate chips (and fresh milk, of course) to the masses.
His budget was just $30,000 for the entire truck, and he wanted to make sure his cookies were baked fresh at the curb.
So he found a used, 625-pound Vulcan convection oven on Craigslist, stuck it into a 1988 Washington Post delivery van that he bought for $2,400, and Captain Cookie and the Milkman was born.
The truck is small — the 6-foot-1 Francis has maybe an inch of clearance when he stands inside — but the commercial oven is about twice the size of a normal kitchen oven and can bake 120 cookies at once, or 720 in an hour. Francis estimates that it has baked more than a million cookies since he launched the truck in 2012.
Francis now owns four Captain Cookie trucks, a food hall and a brick-and-mortar shop, so he has seen many sides of the business. He said trucks can be inspected a dozen or more times a year, much more often than most restaurants. And while the trucks have lower overhead costs and are more profitable — owners worry about potholes and parking tickets but not leases and rent — trucks are also less predictable.
Francis told all this to a culinary arts class at D.C. Central Kitchen on a frigid March day when steady rain and umbrella-shredding wind had kept most trucks off the road. When it’s raining, truck operators say, sales go down by half compared with a sunny day. When it’s cold and raining, sales drop to a quarter.
The cookie truck’s motor coughed and died as Francis pulled into the parking lot, and after the class of cooks-in-training checked out the truck and sampled cookies, he had to wait in the rain for a tow truck.
“You have to be able to roll with it,” he said, shrugging. “I never have to worry about the store breaking down by the side of the road.”
by Bonnie Berkowitz, Seth Blanchard, Aaron Steckelberg and Monica Ulmanu, WaPo | Read more:
Image: Bill O'Leary
