If you plan on opening a food truck, you might wonder if having a permanent location, traveling to events, or somewhere between, is the right business model for you.
This is an important decision to make as a food truck owner because it will affect what types of equipment and systems you need inside the food truck. Also, knowing this can help you decide if a food truck or trailer is the better setup. Meanwhile, your city or state will likely have different permit requirements for permanent setups versus events.
Below we will go over some common food truck location options, to help you decide which is best suited for your business dreams.
Food truck or trailer options:
Permanent Spot:
A permanent spot for a food truck or trailer is perfect for those wishing to leave their food truck in the same place all the time. A permanent spot will likely be in a food truck pod, where other food trucks also stay parked, or in the parking lot of a business.
For a permanent spot, you’ll likely pay a lease or rent to a landlord or business owner monthly. You may also be responsible for paying utilities.
This setup is perfect for food truck owners who want a consistent schedule where they are open most days of the week and can build up a loyal customer base. One benefit of having a permanent spot is being able to utilize delivery services like DoorDash, Uber Eats, or GrubHub to reach more customers.
Permanent Daily Location or Rotating Services
Occasionally some food truck spots require the food truck or trailer to leave the premises nightly. This would mean you’d need to take your vehicle to your house or a designated spot to park at night, as it isn’t allowed to stay overnight in the place it serves food at daily.
Some food truck owners set up a rotating schedule, where they are at one location on certain days of the week, and a few other days at another. This allows them to build up a loyal customer base at two different locations, potentially increasing their earnings.
Especially if you already have to move your trailer off-premises each night, it might be beneficial to have one or two days of the week where you go serve food elsewhere – but keep in mind rent or lease costs to make sure it is worthwhile to go to more than one location weekly.
Having a rotating schedule may make it more difficult to set up delivery services, but if it allows for more in-person sales it could be worthwhile. Having rotating locations can work especially well when you can establish a routine and access the right target market for the kind of food you serve. For example, showing up every Wednesday to a long-term construction site at lunchtime may help you reach some loyal (and hungry) customers as long as your food fits with what they want (handhelds like burritos and cheesesteaks would fare better than soup most likely).
Public Right-of-Way/ Sidewalk
Some of the first food trucks started out by parking on the side of the road in neighborhood or commercial streets, and serving foot traffic and locals. Depending on your city, you may get approval to park in a public parking spot and serve customers on the sidewalk. You will need to pay for special permits for this. There may be restrictions on where you can and can’t park, but this can be a good way to reach customers in busy cities without having to pay rent or lease.
With this setup, you can choose which neighborhood you want to be in at any given time (within reason and as long as you have approval). This can allow you to park outside of a concert venue to get late-night traffic or down the street from a Saturday market to get street traffic. By staying on top of events happening in your city, you can maximize your customer reach.
This setup is ideal for those who want to set their own schedule and maximize earnings by going where customers are at any given time. Having a food truck (not a towed trailer) is usually the best setup for those who are setting up in the public right of way, sidewalk, or parking spot, as the vehicle will have to move after service is finished.
While this setup may be less consistent than a permanent spot, with the right planning you may be able to earn a lot in a short amount of time because you went to the customers, rather than trying to entice them to come to you. One downside is that you won’t be able to sign up with delivery services, and you may have a harder time keeping loyal customers as they won’t be able to find you.
Catering/ Events
Another option is to exclusively do catering and events, and avoid having to find a location for your truck or trailer altogether.
By exclusively doing catering and events you can fully customize your schedule and decide which events will best fit with your brand and offerings. This may mean that you bring your truck or trailer to sporting events, concerts, music festivals, weddings, and more.
One benefit of doing catering or events out of your food truck is that you’ll most likely have a captive audience. For example, a music festival may have tens of thousands of attendees who will be in a fixed location over a few days, meaning that you can drive in at the start of the event and set up, and then serve a fixed audience over a few days.
Catering and events can be a great way to bring in lot of customers all at once, but it also means that you’ll need to potentially travel far distances to events, and coordinate and find accommodations for any staff you bring. Depending on the size of the event, you may need all hands on deck. That being said, you may be able to afford it, usually food venders at events raise prices slightly because their audience is captive and doesn’t have access to cheaper options.
A downside of events is that you may need to use a commissary or commercial kitchen to do prep, as there might be a need for larger cooking and cooling space. This adds an additional cost and more time ahead of the event that needs to be accounted for. That being said, if you’re just serving basic hot dogs and fries or chips you’re probably good to go without needing to do extensive prep- it all just depends on your menu and how much you’re trying to serve.
Also, remember that many events have fees to claim a spot inside the event. Usually, if this is the case (and you have a great-looking menu) the fee will end up seeming like nothing compared to your earnings as it means there is demand and a lot of customers.
Pro-tip: If you’re doing summer events you’ll want to stock up on a lot of refreshing beverages. From lemonade to bottled water, people will be warm and thirsty!
Bottom Line
Deciding which option is best for your food truck (or trailer) business will come down to what you envision your daily operations to look like. Do you want the consistency of one fixed location, or do you want the excitement of parking outside events to try to capture the attention of customers as they’re leaving?
Once you have a vision, consider what equipment will be required for your chosen setup, and think about if a food truck that can drive itself would be a better investment than a food trailer which will need to be towed.
If you still aren’t sure about your food business journey, read this blog post to help decide if a restaurant or food truck is right for you!
