Most of the people I’ve observed working in lunch-trucks/lunch carts in the city are immigrants. I was wondering if the average truck/cart is owner operated or owned by someone else (sligthtly wealthier relative?). I was also wondering what the average costs and expenses are for one. Please share your fruit-salad-making, falafel-slathering stories.
I had a friend whose family ran a lunch truck. They rented the truck and bought supplies from a catering company, and set the items and prices themselves. They picked up their truck every morning and dropped it off at night to be cleaned. The really big difficulty for them was finding a place to park - all of the places that were their target market already had a resident truck. They got out of it after a few months, because it didn’t make very much money and they had to work 16 hour days 7 days a week to run it. They were a family of Mexican immigrants.
A hot truck with a good route, or place to park and a good cook, can make a lot of money, but it takes a large time commitment.
I worked at one dealership where the cook could cook. My OG, I am drooling just thinking about her breakfast burritos. To die for. The guy did great. Everybody in this fairly large dealer came out and bought something at morning break, and 10-15 people would have lunch off the truck every day.
Then I switched dealers. The lunch truck had a horrible cook. I ate off the truck once got sick and that was it. About the only thing this guy sold was sodas, and prepackaged chips and sweets. You are not going to get rich on that.