🚚 The Trailer Investment
A main topic of conversation right now is the investment of a food truck or trailer as a second mobile set-up. It would be a second in the spring, summer, and fall, and the only (for the most part) during the winter.
By: Brendan
A little late, as we have already decided to go for it, but this is how we were thinking about an investment in a food cart.
💬 In This Post:
- Risks/Disadvantages of buying a cart
- Advantages of purchasing a cart
- General thoughts and questions we have
Expansion on Our Minds
A main topic of conversation right now is the investment of a food truck or trailer as a second mobile set-up. It would be a second in the spring, summer, and fall, and the only (for the most part) during the winter. We spoke with a guy who custom-builds trailers, and need to make a decision on this soon as he needs the order by the end of June to have it ready for winter.
My goal with this blog is to organize and explore my thoughts regarding risks and advantages of this investment so we can make the right decision.
🚦 Let's start with the negatives, then move on to the positives.
Risks/Disadvantages
I'm writing this under the assumption that the trailer we buy is from the supplier we have talked to. This would mean it is a custom built, brand new unit, lessening the risk of a defective unit.
📝 Learning Process
We will have to figure out what it takes to park/operate/maintain the unit. Some of the costs associated with this are hard to foresee.
What will cleaning take? Will we need a permit to park? How much will fuel costs be?
👨👩👧👦 Hiring
We will need to hire part time help to double book our operation spring through fall 2023.
How many employees will we need to find? What are we looking for? How can we find reliable help?
🔪 1.5-2X Prep Capacity in Same Kitchen
If we have large events planned for both setups in the same weekend we will be hard pressed with capacity in our kitchen. There will need to be more cooking the day of events as well as quicker turn over raw materials quicker. We may also need another refrigerator (or 2) in the kitchen.
🛻 Pickup Truck Purchase
We would need to buy a truck to haul this trailer for next spring (could use van through the winter) to have 2 set-up possibility.
💸 Increased Debt
If anything goes catastrophically wrong, we have more debt that needs to be paid off.
Advantages
🗓 Event Scheduling Capacity
A fitted out trailer would double capacity during spring, summer, and fall assuming we are able to adequately schedule and staff enough events. We have seen plenty of inquiries so believe the latter shouldn't be too difficult.
Through research and experience, we are seeing that in the tight margin food service business , the way to make a real livable wage is to grow your revenues. The main ways for us to do that would be going into a storefront or getting a second mobile set-up.
🌯🌯🌯 Internal Capacity per Event
The type of trailer we are looking at would also have double the capacity of hot holding and a larger griddle than our tent set-up. This would mean that we could hold more food and serve it quicker. The result of this would be making busy events more profitable than when operated with the tent. It'll be good to put more numbers to this thought.
🙆🏻♂️ Flexibility
Another advantage of the trailer is flexibility. I mean this in multiple ways. First, it gives us the ability to operate in the rain and high winds which we cannot do with the tent even during the summer. We've had debacles to prove this.
It would give us the option to be a one-person operation which would mean if one of us can't work or an employee needs off last second, we could make do.
One more example of the flexibility is that we would now have the option to get licensed in Philadelphia county. As of now, they only approved fully enclosed set-ups with a permanent sink which we clearly don't have with the tent. While Philly isn't a huge draw for us, it would definitely be good for us to get some exposure there as there is clearly a much larger pool of customers and more of a market for up and coming food concepts to be noticed.
Operating during the winter is obviously the reason this thought came up in the first place and now we would be able to do events year round.
🌱 Growth/Learning
The learning process is a disadvantage as it takes time and there's risk that we may struggle getting the operation off the ground.
However, it can also be an advantage.
Once we learn how to operate a trailer we can standardize the process and repeat it. Having 2 mobile set ups also grows our reach and customer base at a faster rate than just having the tent.
👁 Aesthetics
I want to think that this doesn't matter, but I know that having an enclosed truck or trailer versus a tent makes people see the business as more legitimate.
It would also be great to have both options, the tent being a fun change-up from the norm, while also having the guarantees and comfort that an enclosed trailer provides.
Summary
In short, I think it comes down to this, you have to take risk to grow and get rewarded. After reading and listening to many other entrepreneurs' stories, they have all taken uncomfortable risks to get to where they are. It will bring on a lot more work and learning, but that is the essence of starting your own business.
A calculated risk, if done right, will grow the business. And, if sustained, will have us more than just scraping by like we currently are.
For this risk to be calculated, we do need to put some projected numbers behind the trailer scenario. We have completed those and you can see them here 👇🏻
Tuckedito
Other Thoughts & Questions
- How many more events would we be able to do annually than with just the tent?
- How much of the trailer purchase to finance?
- Hiring and payroll practices?
- Other costs? (Better generator, trailer wrap, etc.)
- Pickup truck purchase timeline and possible vehicles?
- Would it be better to wait a year and take the same risk just one year later, or are we ready to grow now?
- Confirm health department licensing timeline with manufacturer to ensure we'll be able to operate it this winter.
- Will be an advantage over other food truck businesses who use full service trailers for breweries every time. We can use the tent set up which is less costly to operate and can still get the same revenue out of less crowded events.
