important aspect to consider regarding your customers’ sight is your kitchen. Will customers be able to see into the kitchen of your food truck? The type of vehicle you select will determine this aspect of your conceptual atmosphere: Some give better views into the kitchen than others based on the height and size of the service window.
The lighting in the kitchen is important. You must provide a safe environment for those working inside. The lighting you choose also influences how well your customers can see inside.
Sound
The noises coming from your food truck affect the atmosphere. You may want to play a certain type of music to enhance your concept. Playing Hawaiian or Mariachi music can give an energetic, exotic feel to the atmosphere around your truck, whereas playing hard rock can help a concept intended to attract a crowd with a little heavier music preference.
Evaluating Different Types of Vehicles
So you’ve pinpointed the concept for your food truck, with the help of the information I provide earlier in this chapter, that’s a great start. Now you have to figure out what type of vehicle to use to deliver your concept. You can select from a variety of platforms as a means to make a kitchen mobile. I give you the scoop on trucks, carts, trailers, and buses in the following sections.
Food trucks are the preferred choice of most vendors in the mobile food industry because of their range in sizes and their mobility. By definition, a food truck is a licensed, motorized vehicle or mobile food unit that’s used for selling food items to the general public. This definition is quite vague, but that may be because the definition of a food truck varies from city to city. In some cities, you may find that a food truck is a set of heating units sitting in the back of a pickup truck. In other areas, a food truck is a mobile kitchen built into a truck the size of a standard delivery truck (this definition has become the most common one since the surge in the mobile food industry in 2008). These trucks can range in length from 14 feet all the way up to 30 feet. The kitchens in these trucks are fully functioning kitchens that are regulated just as any other commercial kitchen, with additional inspection requirements to make sure all this equipment is safe to travel in between uses. You can check out an honest-to-goodness food truck in Figure 2-1.
Photograph courtesy of Matt Chernus
FIGURE 2-1: A typical food truck is the size of a standard delivery truck.
The pros of using a food truck over a cart or trailer are that a truck is far more mobile and can use parking spaces designated for one or two cars. Food carts are typically dropped off and parked in a single location and, like trailers, require a secondary vehicle to tow them. The kitchens you can have installed in food trucks are nearly the size of those in some trailers, so using a truck instead of a cart also gives you more space.
Food carts are different from food trucks in that they don’t travel under their own power. These carts are towed by a vehicle and are typically dropped off for the time that they’re permitted, in some cases, multiple years. A major downside to food carts is their size. The average food cart ranges in size from 120 to 200 square feet, which severely limits the amount of equipment and staff you’ll be able to fit inside. You can see a food cart for yourself in Figure 2-2.
Photograph courtesy of Derek Coughlin
FIGURE 2-2: A food cart is smaller than a standard food truck.
Food carts are much smaller than their food truck counterparts; yes, you can see this fact as a negative, but it’s also their key advantage. With less space, you’ll have lower costs in powering your cart (propane and electricity), so with a lower overhead to operate, you’ll have the opportunity to keep your prices lower than those of more mobile platforms.
Much like food carts, food trailers lack a drivetrain system and thus require a vehicle to tow them to the locations where vendors plan to sell their fare. However, these trailers are much larger than food carts (some reach the size of cross-country semitrailers). The vast amount of space that these trailers have allow their owners to install much larger kitchens, which in turn allows them to cater to much larger crowds than the average food truck or cart can handle. See a food trailer in Figure 2-3.
Photograph courtesy of Sarah Jurado
FIGURE 2-3: A food trailer can have a large kitchen.
