You made the ultimate business plan, your finances are in place, you have the funds to buy a food truck, you know what food you are going to make and you already picked the best possible location for your kitchen truck. What’s next? How about figuring out your start date.
Continuing with that thinking, we pose this question: When is the perfect time to start a food truck business? While everyone’s situation is different, the spring or the summer is the perfect time for your food truck’s grand opening.
The reasoning behind that is pretty simple. Winter is the offseason for many food trucks. While that isn’t the case for every single mobile kitchen, and there are plenty of mobile catering trucks that achieve a lot of success during the colder months, success in the winter can be hard to achieve for many food truck owners. In fact, there are a ton of trucks that actually close down during the wintertime.
And why wouldn’t they? After all, staying open makes no sense if the temperatures are too cold and customers are few and far between.
So, if you are thinking about entering the food truck industry, and you don’t live in a place like Florida or California, which are places where the temperatures aren’t nearly as cold in the winter, then you should probably wait to start up your business until spring or summer roles around.
Spring and summertime can be considered the golden times for food trucks. Why? Well, more people are outside during the summer. Not to mention, there are typically more tourists in the spring, and especially during the summer.
Looking to finance your food truck? Make sure to check out this link!
If you do live in a place where the temperatures really drop during the winter and you wait to start your business until spring, then you will increase your chances of having a successful grand opening. Naturally, there are going to be a good amount of people at your grand opening thanks to friends, family and word of mouth in general, but there are, once again, typically more people outside during the summer.
People will pass your truck, see something new, smell otherworldly food and decide to eat at your mobile kitchen. This is especially the case in a big city, or a place with lots of people in general.
Here’s another thing to keep in mind: If you live in a place where snow and cold weather are very common, then you might open up your truck and end up having to shut it down for the season right away. At that point, you will lose all of your momentum from your grand opening.
With that in mind, there are some good reasons why you should start your food truck business in the winter. For one, you can attract customers to your truck during the holiday season. There are going to be plenty of hungry mouths to feed when the holiday shopping season is in the air. Also, you might be 100 percent ready to start your business, so why would you want to wait a few months (possibly until May) to get your mobile kitchen going?
In the grand scheme of things, the choice is yours when it comes to opening your food truck. Just make sure you have planned everything out and you know what you are getting yourself into. Once again, if you live in a place like Los Angeles, then opening up a lunch truck in December, January or February is not going to be that big of an issue. The temperatures likely won’t be that cold. Plus, L.A. attracts a lot of tourists year-round, meaning there are always people around. And these people could be your future customers.
No matter what you decide to do when it comes to when your grand opening is, make sure you are 100 percent ready for what the food truck industry has to offer. Make sure your business plan is flawless, you have a plan for every aspect of a food truck business (reminder, there’s more to this industry than simply cooking food and serving customers), etc. This industry is not for the faint of heart. It might be your dream to enter the food truck industry, but you are going to be putting in a ton of hours, and not every single day is going to go smoothly. Not to mention, you might not start making really good money for a while.
Regardless, this industry is still booming, and if you are at the point where you are actually deciding when your grand opening is going to be, then you should be very proud of yourself — and very excited on top of that.
If you are looking to break into the food truck industry, then you might want to check out this article, but first, we will give you a little sneak peek:
Questions You Need To Answer Before Entering The Food Truck Industry
- Is This Really What I Want To Do Every Day?
- Do I Have Enough Money To Make This Work?
- Is My Food Truck Concept Unique Enough?
- Do I Know Enough About The Industry To Succeed?
- Are You Ready To Work Harder Than You Have Ever Worked Before?
Interested in getting into the food truck industry? Request a quote from us today to get going!
Stay up to date on everything Prestige Food Trucks has to offer! Make sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
For more food truck advice and inspiration, check out the rest of our blog here.