nosh nook #115 - friday, august 21, 2009

three best ways to start a food truck business (link)
08.20.09 - wall street journal - by raymund flandez

as i mentioned a few months back, food trucks have recently become all the rage in nyc. from the cupcake truck to the schnitzel truck to the fancy burger truck, the number of gourmet food trucks peppering our streets just keeps growing. the phenomena's not unique to nyc though. food trucks have also sprung up in l.a., austin, d.c. and a handful of cities throughout the country. maybe you're thinking "i want to get me a truck & peddle stuff on a stick to the good citizens of my city, but have no idea how to go about it. i wish there was some sort of helpful guide to steer me in the right direction." keep looking. you aren't going to find it in the wall street journal.

the wall street journal's raymund flandez has put together a smashingly low-level & ultimately useless summary of the craze & how other hopeful entrepreneurs can get on board. he's even named it "the three best ways to start a food truck business" even though it's clearly a rundown of the top three things that you should do when starting a food truck business & not the three best ways to start one. his handy tips are supposedly handy for both "restaurateurs seeking an extra boost in sales" and "entrepreneurs looking to sell food without paying rent." i beg to differ.

...so if you're looking to start a food truck business, the first thing you need to do is "buy a used truck for cheap." yep. it's true...can't start a food truck business without a food truck. once you've done that, you need to "find a good location to sell your food." also true. if you're trying to sell your food outside of an abandoned building, you might have trouble attracting customers. if you set up shop out front of a mcdonalds, they'll probably call the cops. with your truck & location set up, you should "use social-networking technology" to keep customers up-to-date with what's going on with your truck, including your location. flandez suggests using "twitter, facebook and blogs." he doesn't mention myspace though, even though both it & the journal are part of the newscorp family. it makes sense though, since myspace is so five years ago...sorry bout that $580 million you paid for it, rupert.