Food truck evolution: Owners strategize as novelty wears off
NEW YORK — Starting a food truck to sell tacos or barbecue on downtown streets may seem easy or fun, but owners are finding they need more sophisticated plans now that the novelty has worn off.
A culinary fad a decade ago, food trucks have lost some luster and even new ones may not draw a crowd. Many prospective restaurateurs now use trucks as low-cost test kitchens and as literal marketing vehicles. And food truck operators soon realize they need to think strategically — especially about the winter.
Jack and Max Barber started a food truck called Mainely Burgers in 2012, selling burgers and fries at the beach in Scarborough, Maine, and the next year added a second truck in Portland and an ice cream truck. But the competition with Portland's restaurants was tough.
“We were definitely bummed out that doing the streets of Portland wasn't working,” Jack Barber says. The brothers realized they had to change their business model. While the trucks are still a big part of the business, catering is a better way to bring in revenue.
The Barbers now have a full catering calendar, and business has been good enough that they have a restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Food trucks are still appealing to chefs and entrepreneurs because they cost less than restaurants to open — tens of thousands of dollars versus hundreds of thousands or more, says John Gordon, a restaurant consultant with Pacific Management Consulting Group. That difference was particularly attractive during the Great Recession, and the cheap menus drew consumers who could get unique food for less than at a restaurant.
But trucks feel less special to customers now, particularly in big cities, restaurant consultant Clark Wolf says.
“They're no longer a kind of secret, movable, underground treasure,” he says.
The biggest growth in the industry is past, according to market research firm IBISWORLD. It counted 4,046 food trucks in the U.S. last year, nearly twice the number of 2008. But it projects annual revenue growth of 3 percent from 2017 to 2022, compared to 7.3 percent from 2012 to last year, when revenue totaled nearly $1 billion.