Trying to figure out how to cook not just good, but award-winning BBQ? You know the kind that gets people reminiscing about the time they ate your fall-off-the-bone ribs and have the potential to bring home a trophy at a competition? If you're looking to elevate your BBQ to the next level there are a variety of online communities where you can access the vast knowledge of pit masters from across the country and around the world. Nothing Beats BBQ. We recently interviewed one of our past customers, Wade Morris to share how he was able to start [...]

See the Jägermeister Trailer at AT&T Stadium during Dallas Cowboys football games. For over 3 decades Hollywood's Productions has been working with the biggest names in music and sports entertainment to provide unforgettable mobile marketing experiences. Over the past 30+ years the company has worked with some of the biggest names in music from Jason Aldean to Brooks & Dunn. In sports they've helped create more exposure for brands like Coors and Jägermeister everywhere from NFL games to NASCAR races. At M&R Specialty Trailers and Trucks, we are proud to call Hollywood's Productions as valued customer and have worked with them [...]

Dubai, an enormous city with a population of over 2.7 million people in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is well known for its super-expensive real estate, growing economy where it's been reported 20% of the world's cranes are currently located, and of course the Burj Khalifa which is the tallest skyscraper building in the world coming in a 2,722 feet.  In addition to all this growth and prosperity, you might be surprised to learn Dubai also has one of the fastest growing food truck scenes in the world. In today's post we take a look a five different food trucks and their menu concepts [...]

Inspection grades for restaurants in New York. If you live in states like California or New York, you're familiar with seeing a letter grade posted clearly outside of a restaurant. These letter grades are intended to give consumers confidence that they are eating at an establishment that maintains a clean and healthy kitchen. But are these ratings good for mobile food units as well? Within the state of California there are three letter grades that can be assigned to a restaurant by a health inspector two times per year: Rating A - This means the restaurant is safe to [...]

Gluten Free is Becoming a More Popular Dietary Lifestyle. According to this report from HealthDay, the number of Americans eating a gluten-free diet has tripled over the last 5 years. This adds up to 2.7 million people that are estimated to consume the diet that cite overall health and digestive reasons for their choice. With so many people choosing this lifestyle should your food truck adapt to meet this growing demand? Or is this simply a flavor of the month diet that will be quickly forgotten in a few months? We explore this topic in greater detail within [...]

Built by M&R Specialty Trailers and Trucks. Recently SmallFoodBiz.com published survey results from 154 food truck entrepreneurs operating their businesses across the United States and Canada. Although the results of this sample are a small percentage of the likely 15,000 - 20,000 vendors that operate in the United States alone, the results of this survey match much of what we have observed anecdotally helping hundreds of mobile businesses get their start at M&R Specialty Trailers and Trucks. Although the results of this survey align with our observations, some of the results contradict what you may have read about [...]

An infographic is a visual illustration of something that is complex. These images can help take something that is complicated like running a business and simply it into something that is easily understood. In 2017 there have been numerous of these infographics published that help better explain a variety aspects of the food truck business and operations. As the popularity of mobile food has continued to grow in recent years numerous organizations have designed infographics that dive deep into different aspects of running this type of business like marketing, history of food trucks, and overviews of the industry as a [...]

Over the past few years, you may have read stories like this Wall Street Journal article about the ongoing battle between food trucks and restaurateurs. The basic premise of the hundreds of stories written over the past half decade is typically the same: Restaurant owners want to restrict the number of food trucks in the area and to prevent competition. Food truck owners, on the other hand, want less restrictive laws that will allow them to vend when and where they want. While this animosity between restaurants and food trucks may have been the case a few years ago, this [...]

Jae Kim, owner and founder of the Austin-based Chi'Lantro, didn't make it into ABC's hit investment show “Shark Tank” on his first two attempts to be on the show. Kim’s concept was to launch a Korean BBQ inspired restaurant chain that had the potential to generate millions in revenue each year. But on Kim’s first attempt to be featured on the investment show, Chi’Lantro was just an idea without a proven track record of sales. Instead of getting discouraged by not getting on the show, Kim started to put his concept into action by buying a food truck because he [...]

Laurel Hague, owner of The Ugly Apple Cafe based out of Madison, Wisconsin, works with local farmers to minimize waste by using overstock produce to help the cities less fortunate. We had the opportunity to speak with Laurel about her business and the long-term vision of The Ugly Apple Cafe. M&R: Tell us about the Ugly Apple and your goals. Laurel: The Ugly Apple is a food cart that serves breakfast in downtown Madison.  Madison has strict size restrictions for mobile food, so it's a 6ft by 9ft trailer that is designed to look like an apple crate. It's a [...]