As your business grows and matures, where you invest time and energy needs to change. Too many first time vendors get overwhelmed when they find out just how many steps it takes to operate a food business.  Others get paralyzed just trying to figure out what to work to prioritize first. Don't let this happen to you!  The goal of this post is to help you set specific business objectives to throw your time and energy into when the time is right. You don't need to complete the steps of starting and growing a business all at once. In fact, [...]

Today's blog post features one food truck / restaurant owners experience deciding whether or not to hire a restaurant consultant for his business and the lessons learned. We hope you enjoy this special post! I expected hard work when I started a food truck business. What I didn’t see coming were the mental challenges I would need to conquer to be successful. I think of these as my “mental blocks.” These blocks are the things preventing me from reaching the next level in my business. My first mental block was overcome when I decided the approach my business not as [...]

Trying to decide between starting a restaurant or food truck? You're not the first culinary entrepreneur that's faced this difficult decision. In fact, many current food truck owners originally planned to start restaurants, but after realizing they would need $500,000 (at least) to get their concept open decided to explore a more affordable mobile food unit instead. Bottom line, when it comes to deciding whether or open a restaurant versus a food truck there's no one sized fits correct choice. There are distinct advantages and disadvantages to each business model that we will explore in today's post. You'll need to [...]

Depending on where you live, you may have noticed a concession trailer or hot dog cart serving outside of a big-box home improvement store like Home Depot and wondered... How can I get my concession business to vend there? Home Depot's can be desirable areas to vend because there can be foot traffic in-and-out of the store all day, seven days a week. Home improvement stores attract a wide-range of professionals including contractors, laborers, and even the weekend do-it-yourselfer. In this post, we explore how to get your business approved to vend in these locations, what the process is like, [...]

Winter is indeed coming. For vendors operating in cooler temperature states or even Canada this inevitably means lower monthly revenue figures for the rest of the year as we move deeper into the fall and winter months. Most food vendors anticipate this lower demand due to seasonality. In places like New York, Boston and the entire country of Canada you'll need to be prepared for substantial revenue impacts. If you're located in Southern California or Florida, the winter-time revenue impacts will be less pronounced. When you're starting your business or still in the business plan development stage, it's important to [...]

How much storage space is needed on your concession trailer? This is a question frequently overlooked by first time vendors. It's easy to get wrapped up in the type of kitchen equipment that will be installed and the wrap of the vehicle. These are important parts of the build process. But at M&R Specialty Trailers and Trucks, we also understand you need to have enough available space on the concession trailer to store your raw materials like hamburgers, tacos, or BBQ after your equipment is installed. Within the food industry, the amount of storage space inside your food trailer is [...]

When first time restauranteurs or food truck owners are just starting out it's logical to think that perfecting the food is the best use of their limited time. After all if you don't make a good impression to first time customers, you might never get the opportunity to serve them a second time. In this Q/A interview with Eric Silverstein, owner of the massively popular Austin-based restaurant  The Peached Tortilla shares why food is actually not the most important factor in determining whether or not a food business will be successful. Eric knows what he's talking about too. Just a few [...]

For the purposes of this particular blog post we will be focusing on the costs to start a BBQ concession, catering, or vending business using a mobile unit like a trailer or truck. At M&R Specialty Trailers and Trucks one of our specialties is manufacturing BBQ trailers, trucks, and smokers built to our customers needs and desires. Not only do we understand the cost to operate this type of business, but understand the different goals people have when investing in a BBQ trailer. Some of our customers like Wade, an active service member of the United States military, invested in [...]

Before the rise of gourmet food trucks there was the "roach coach." In fact, a small number of people (generally over the age of 60) still refer to mobile food units by the name roach coach. Fortunately, over the past 20 years the perception of the quality of food that can be served from a truck has been completely transformed and flipped on its head thanks to the innovative chefs that operate food trucks in the 21st century. In today's post, we discuss how that name came to be and dive into the history of the food truck so you [...]