If you are thinking about entering the food truck industry, then there are about 1,000 different things you are going to have to figure out. While that might be exaggerated a bit, food truck owners have to make a ton of different decisions before they even get their trucks up and running.
One of those decisions — and it is a very important one — is figuring out what you want your concept to be. Figuring out your concept and menu might not be the easiest decision to make, but once you have made up your mind, you need to stick with your concept (and love it).
Branding and marketing aside, your concept and menu alone are going to attract customers. After all, people go to food trucks for the — wait for it — food. And if your concept is good enough, your lines will be flocking with customers in no time.
Tips For Picking A Food Truck Concept
- Be Unique
- Be Simple
- Don’t Choose The Same Concept As The Other Trucks In Your Area
- Cook What You Want To Cook
- Cook What You Know
Be Unique
Don’t be afraid to be unique. Being unique is only going to lead to your mobile kitchen sticking out, and that is crucial in this industry. For example, if your concept is unique enough, picking your truck over a hot dog stand might be a no-brainer for customers.
With that said, you don’t want to be so unique that your concept and menu throws customers off altogether, or scares them away.
Figuring out your concept is one of the most important things when it comes to your actual product, so make sure you spend a lot of time with this step.
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Be Simple
What do we mean by this? Well, we don’t necessarily mean to be simple in terms of opening up another ordinary taco truck, although there are plenty of unique taco trucks in the food truck industry. We mean to be rather simple with your menu. If it is too overwhelming (if there are too many options, that is), then your lines could build up as a result of it taking longer for customers to make their orders. Sit-down restaurants can get away with this because it typically takes longer to get your food at a sit-down restaurant (and that’s expected).
Like the last point said, it is okay to be as unique as possible, but just make sure your actual menu is manageable for your customers.
Don’t Choose The Same Concept As The Other Trucks In Your Area
Choosing the same concept as everyone around you is just bad form. Why? Well, because you could come off as a copycat, and you are spending way too much money to come off as a copycat. Not to mention, the food trucks around your desired location are already established, which means they already have regular customers. These loyal customers would never, theoretically, go to another food truck that serves similar food. Then again, people like to try new things when it comes to food.
For all it’s worth, your mobile kitchen could really stand out if your concept is different than the other food trucks in your area.
Cook What You Know
Cook what you know. If your specialty is soups, then flood your menu with soup options. If you are an expert when it comes to cooking Mexican food, Hawaiian food, American food or whatever it might be, then stick to that concept. Why wouldn’t you?
Just remember, you can add new items and specials to your menu all the time. Food truck owners literally do that — you guessed it — all the time. Many of them follow the seasons (and the temperatures), and they also follow the trends. For instance, pumpkin spice is all the rage in the fall, so a ton of mobile kitchen owners incorporate some type of pumpkin spice item in the fall.
Cooking what you know, and what you love, is a good tip to live by if you plan on growing and thriving in this industry. After all, not everyone has an otherworldly lasagna dish up their sleeve.
Cook What You Want To Cook
Cook what you want to cook. You can get all of the advice in the world, but if cooking burgers, or whatever it might be, is not your passion, then why do it? People enter this industry for many different reasons, but one of them is because they want to be a chef. They want to cook great food and make people happy as a result.
So, cook whatever you desire. If you want to cook lobster tacos, then cook lobster tacos. If you want to make unique dish after unique dish, simple dish after simple dish or something in between, then do just that. The choice is yours. Just choose your concept and then run with it.
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