The Food Truck Handbook

Depending on the infrastructure that already exists in your city, it might be very easy to find a commissary space. New York City and Los Angeles both have developed food truck markets and have a number of commissaries already in operation. However, smaller, developing food truck markets might not have commissaries in place. To find a commissary, the best place to start is by asking current vendors. If you cannot find a commissary you like, you can also try looking at private organizations with large cafeterias like office buildings, schools, churches, or culinary schools. Another good option is working out of a restaurant that only serves dinner. A restaurant that only serves dinner may not start doing prep until 11 am. That works well for both the restaurant who can earn some revenue to offset their rent when their restaurant is idle and for a food truck that may want to do prep from 7 am to 10 am before lunch service

MobiMunch (mobimunch.com) was founded in 2009. The company is in the process of creating a national food truck rental platform. MobiMunch offers prefabricated food trucks for long-term rental.

There are a number of criteria to think about when choosing a generator, including wattage, price, noise, fuel type, size, and postpurchase service.

Step van styles that you can search for on Craigslist include: Chevrolet P30, Ford P30, Ford E350, Freightliner MT45, GMC P30, Grumman Olson, Utilimaster, or Workhorse W42. Used step vans typically cost $5,000 to $20,000 depending on the condition of the vehicle

Yes, you definitely need to consider your heating, venting, and air conditioning.

Consider the type of shoreline you’ll use to power the fridges on your truck overnight. As more and more trucks move from stable to vending, vending locations open up the possibility to power the truck by shoreline instead of by generator. Being able to easily get enough power to the onboard system to power the whole truck is essential to make the best use of these systems. Many electric vehicle charging stations use a J1772 connector, so using this connector or being able to convert to it may be useful in the future.

Water and Power
Just as if you were going to build a brick-and-mortar restaurant, you need to be mindful of the core utilities. Know all of the regulatory requirements for the size of your water and wastewater tanks and the size sink that you’ll need. In some cases you may need only a hand sink, but in others you may need a two-compartment sink. Don’t forget to include space for a hot-water heater and a pump if you’ll need it for running water. Think about the location of the fuse box and where you’ll need outlets

Ideally this would be done in a computer-aided design (CAD) program

On a food truck, every inch counts. It is important to do the layout of the space to scale

There are several methods of pricing including cost pricing, competitive-based pricing, or value pricing. Cost pricing is pricing based on the cost of a good to supply. Competitive-based pricing is pricing based on how others in the market are pricing. Value pricing is based on the value of the offering. To the extent possible, you will want to do value pricing, but make sure your costs are covered and you are priced competitively against other food vendors. In order to get ready to price your menu, you should do some research to see what prices other vendors are charging for goods of similar quality