16 Lessons: Your First Year on a Food Truck

My name is Malcolm Bedell, and in 2014, I did what I look back on now as a pretty gutsy, maybe even seemingly impossible thing. I abandoned the safety and security of my 9-to-5 desk job (much to the horror of my wife and no doubt contributing to the future therapy bills for my two girls) to chase my dream of opening and running a successful food truck in my hometown in Maine.

I opened the doors on ‘Wich, Please for service on May 19, 2015, without a clue about how the business would work, whether any customers would be able to find us, whether anyone would like my food,
and only a passing hope that we
would earn enough money to survive
our first week.

Though our little truck has achieved the narrowest shred of profitability, and we’ve enjoyed some accolades from the local press, it wasn’t an easy first year. In this book, I want to share the 16 key lessons I learned in that first year of operation.

Anyone with experience in foodservice, and particularly the mobile food truck business, will probably laugh at some of the degree of naiveté shown here.

My hope, though, is that the things I’ve learned so far will be useful to anyone that’s considering indulging in their food truck fantasies, and making the leap from doing that thing they HAVE to do all day, to that thing they really LOVE doing all day.

This is was published / provided by BackofNapkin.co, a website that creates financial and business calculators on all sorts of topics including the Food Truck Business Projections and Revenue Calculator. If you're serious about starting a food truck business, make sure to take the time to estimate your potential earnings and profitability of your menu. Business planning is a key lesson you'll take away from this manual.