The Easy Search-Engine Optimization Guide (SEO) For Food Truck Operators
Want to market your food truck on on major search engines like Google and Bing? Getting the major search engines to pay attention to your mobile food business is one of the easiest ways to generate new customers in addition to capturing lucrative catering opportunities that can really benefit the bottom line. In order to get Google to take notice of your business, you'll need to complete a little basic SEO or search-engine optimization. In layman's terms, SEO is all about ensuring search engines find and display you prominently within results pages. You can get technical with it, but for [...]
What Licenses or Permits Does a Catering Business Need?
Do you throw elaborate dinner parties for your friends, complete with multiple rounds of appetizers and perfectly paired after-dinner cheese plates? Do you look forward to minor social events as an opportunity to make little skewers festooned with carefully patterend baby buffalo mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, and fresh basil? Are you constantly being asked to "pitch in" with the cooking at other people's events or functions? Do you find yourself entering local cooking competitions to try out new recipes and bask in the glory of having the best chili in town, WHILE raising money for muscular dystrophy? If so, you've probably considered [...]
Two Ways Gourmet Food Trucks Can Better Serve Construction Sites
Mobile vendors and construction sites go together like peanut butter and jelly, ketchup and mustard, donuts and coffee... Well you get the idea. The pairing of lunch trucks serving construction sites have been common site for decades. This symbiotic relationship continues to be strong in 2018 and could be an overlooked opportunity for you as well. Whether you operate in a densely populated city or a rural area serving construction sites can be a profitable part of your regular operations. If a new structure like a distribution center is being developed off-the grid in a location without nearby water, electricity [...]
How to Start a Profitable Pie Concession Trailer Business
Crumbly, flaky, tasty... The business side of selling pies has its benefits. While pies are traditionally thought of as a desert in the United States there are simple ways the food can be adapted as breakfast or lunch options (chicken pot pie anyone?). In today's post we explore the pie industry in greater detail so you can decide if it's the right option for your business. Business Potential One of the first steps in writing any business plan is determining if there's market demand for your product. In 2017, a company called Specialty Bakeries Inc. brought in over $20 million [...]
Should You Paint or Wrap a Food Trailer?
If you've landed here, you're no doubt trying to decide whether it's better to wrap or paint a food truck or trailer. If you're grappling with this decision, the answer is simple: Get your food truck professionally wrapped. Inside this post we'll outline our supporting evidence into the paint VS wrap decision, but for the majority of folks out there this should be an obvious choice. Almost every gourmet truck you see on the road has used a wrap instead paint due to the numerous visual benefits. Learn the many reasons why below! Sprinter Van built by M&R Specialty [...]
Why NYC's Snowday Food Truck Offers Job Training to Youth With Criminal Backgrounds
"People who run criminal organizations have all those (business) skills. They just have been put in the wrong and negative space," explains Roy Waterman, Director of Program for Drive Change. The goal of Watermans' organization is to train, mentor, and employ formerly incarcerated young men and women by working on a food truck. As a former inmate himself, Waterman understands how difficult it can be to turn your life around and become a productive member of society. When you are raised in an environment where all you see if drug use and criminal activity, it can be almost impossible to [...]
Custom-Built Hawaiian Food Trucks For Sale
Although the total populations of Hawaii is less than 1.5 million people, the culinary footprint of this group of islands is much larger than it's size. No matter where you go in mainland United States, you can locate a locally owned Hawaiian restaurant. Part of the reason for the popularity is due to the massive amount of tourism to the state. According to news reports, almost 9 million people visited one of the islands in 2017 alone. Many of these tourists return home craving the flavors of the islands they enjoyed while on vacation. Hawaiian food truck. Traditional [...]
Do Food Trucks Need to Pay Taxes in the United States?
The 2018 deadline for submitting your business or personal income taxes in the United States is nearly upon us. In 2018, the deadline for submitting these taxes to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is April, 17th. This date is even labeled as Tax Day on most calendars. Depending on your situation this date is something you dread or is just another day because you filed your taxes in advance over a month ago. No matter what end of this spectrum you find yourself at, as Tax Day moves closer people have questions about the tax code and law. One frequently [...]
Video Tour: Smoothie King ProMaster Van Conversion
When Smoothie King needed a fully-mobile Smoothie bar, they turned to M&R Specialty Trailers and Trucks to execute their vision. In today's video tour, Bob Pierson, co-founder of M&R Specialty Trailers and Trucks provides an exterior and interior walkthrough of the completed and wrapped unit. Click the video below to start the 5 minute tour now! About Smoothie King Smoothie King founder Steve Kuhnau started the business in 1973. In 1989, Smoothie King opened the first U.S. juice bar franchise. Fast forward to 2018, the company now has over 800 locations globally and continues to grow. Although the juice bar [...]
Five Popular Food Truck Alternatives to Start a Mobile Food Business
Do you love the idea of starting a mobile food business, but are looking for options beyond a basic food truck? In that case, we've got you covered with some of the most popular alternatives available! At M&R Specialty Trailers and Trucks we've had the privilege of custom building all kind of food units to meet our client's vision. What we've learned in our 15+ years in the industry is that every business has different goals and unique needs that require outside-the-box planning to accomplish. Some of our customers are on strict budgets and need to a unit that will [...]