food truck

Yes, you probably are. I looked into it a little a few months back, and I seem to remember that the minimum investment to get it going was surprisingly high. Are you willing to fight with the Halal Mafia. Also, the idea of a bunch of different foods is unnecessarily complicated. Find a single niche and have a focused menu. There's nothing worse than waiting at a truck in the hot sun (the new "Bistro Truck" takes forever, and so I've stopped going).

you need to buy cchen a fancy dinner and hear all the advice you can get from him

These guys are famous locally: http://www.skilletstreetfood.com/

They send updates on where they are through twitter and email.

It's a big new thing, there are tons of articles around about the food trucks. Some are quite fancy, some are just cheap and good. I think probably about $25K-50K to start?

When I went to school in Philadelphia there were several food trucks that did extremely brisk business. The carts that seemed to do best were located within close distance to a hospital and also the bulk of the university administration functions.

Probably the most successful one was a taco/burrito cart. During lunch hour the line was continuously 20 deep, and they turned it over fast. 500 burritos per day would be a conservative estimate, and figure the profit on them is about $3 after all expenses. That's $1,500 a day going into the owners pocket. Being all cash, the amount of tax you pay is probably entirely up to you. Not a bad racket.

Of course for every truck that busy there were 3-4 that weren't nearly as busy. I'd take a hard look at the taco/burrito model if youre serious about this. It's got the cheap ingredients, quick to make, and popular.

If you're serious about this you just have to do your research. Find an area with a lot of blue collar businesses like automotive repair, construction, welding, and other labor type stuff. Know the variety of ethnicities and what food options are nearby. Maybe if you know a few owners in the area, ask how they think a new roach coach would do. While doing your own ethnic creations is definitely cool, you'll still need to stock donuts, bagels, coffee, soda, gatorade cigs, bad for you chips/prepackaged pastries (hostess things), and make some sandwich/subs the night before and syrann wrap them up for quick purchase grabs. People are more likely to buy something they can see already there rather than looking at the menu. You might get people ordering a burrito or something from you and also impulse buying a small $3-4 sandwich, a soda, and a donut all at once. The roach coach guy that goes up and down OBT in orlando (road full of drug dealers, hookers, automotive guys, and other blue collar shops) makes a good living and he doesn't have anything fancy. Just bad sandwiches, hot dogs, donuts, bagels and snacks/goodies. My dad was telling me that guy makes real good money. I know you have high standards and everything but remember to somewhat compromise your ultimate vision. You don't need to have great food to be a really successful roach coach. I'd wager the most profitable ones aren't that great. It's all about the location and businesses/clients you have

How about a bachelor party truck?

Then actually make dessert that tastes good .

NYC only allows so many vendors license per year. They are hard enough to get and I believe that you have to bid on them.

kunk, I don't want to talk about taco trucks. It hurts me to think about it.

That's cool if you just wanted to have fun but you're not making shit just opening up a cool food truck in the burbs unless you get a super dedicated regular base and get featured on foodnetwork or a travel channel diners drive ins and dives type show. A lot of those places last via legacy and someone's dad or grandad opening the place in the 50s and having diehards who eat there 4 times a week. I mean, if there was a reasonably priced but really good taco truck or something like that nearby i'd eat there once-twice a week but that's not gonna cut it