Am I insane to think I can run a food trailer by myself?

I designed my business around running it solo, including a self-service kiosk to keep me hands off with my customers... It doesn't work.

You can do casual gigs on your own (Very Low Sales), if you are efficient, but you can't be sustainable. A second set of hands is worth the world, especially if you run into any obstacles, which you will.

An exception could be if you do a ton of prep ahead of time and sell pre-packaged, cold lunch boxes. Push all of the cooking to non-service hours and basically operate as a vending machine.

If you want to fly solo, get a catering license and start with special events. A table and a tent and some equipment and you're good to go. It's way easier to manage, and people are way more forgiving of a guy in a tent.

I do a food truck largely by myself. I have a qr code customers can order from and i can make the orders but my menu is small and manageable.

8 items.

I do an asian fusion taco truck. My 5 main entrees are taco plates that come with 2 tacos, chips, and guacamole.

The other 3 items are churro-misu (churros with a tiramisu style dip), a side of chips, and a kids quesadilla (using the same 6” tortillas as the tacos)

It is efficient because i can set up like 40-50 boxes in advance with chips and dip and just put whatever two tacos in each box. I will say i purposely set up my menu this way. Between the fryer and the grill nothing is too overwhelmed with orders.

However when im serving more than say 30-40 people i need someone else there. And ideally i would like to hire a full time employee.

I run a trailer that sells tacos. We’re pretty proficient at what we do and some days it takes four people to run a successful day. One for register one for line one to build orders and one to check and bag, we run like an assembly line in a factory. Don’t do it yourself for your own sanity. Don’t become a statistic and learn from others mistakes.

Everyone poops. Need another set of eyes

I run mine solo all the time. None of my stuff is precooked. I have 2 part time employees that help for events or busy weekends.

23 foot full service trailer . I couldn’t do it myself . I’m wouldn’t do it myself

short answer NO

Long answer is you could set up the business to be lean and nunable for short unsustained periods by one person by long term it is not a realistic way to live and you need to plan for the business to not only be sustained by more than one person, but also for it to sustain more than one person or you will be forever in the future when you realise you cant do it alone, training new people because you cannot pay a living wage and keep the kind of talent who could also sustain the business alone for short bursts if need be in your absence

Otherwise you are building a prison, that will only ever free you when it fails.. and that will become a self fulfilling prophecy as you slowly march into depression and begin to wish to fail as your enthusiasm begins to wane and the daily grind wears you down.. until you are left will little choice but to abandon your dream for the harsh reality that you were better off before ..

I am not saying you cant succeed, but doing it all alone forever is unrealistic and planning that way will cause you to make choices that will create a model that fails under the weight of multiple people.

I run mine 100% by myself in Northern CA.

It is possible, but you'd likely need to come up with an idea and half it.

Sure assembly and preparation could be done solo but imagine yourself a decent sized line and even if the assembly is quick that line is 100% stopped dead while you're building tacos. Combine that with pack down/setup, cleaning, waste disposal and prep and if you don't keep the menu small you'll quickly burn yourself out or end up being slow as all hell.

The main issue is time and money. Cause if you're exchanging money. You have to swap gloves. And if one person takes their sweet time. You lose time. The goal is to get the line moving and it's next to impossible to write down people's orders, ring them out and make their food with ease. By myself I can maybe do 250$-300$ an hour or maybe 25-30 orders (I do burgers and fries) but with a person dealing with FoH stuff we can crank over 60 orders in an hour.

Wow, and to think I could run my hotdog trailer by myself. This is definitely a good question!

How much experience in food do you have?

I know a dude running solo out in Vegas he does Mexican food too.

I had the same idea, couldn’t do it. MINIMUM of two. And that’s when it’s slow. Is it possible to do alone? Yes, however you’ll sacrifice speed, being able to sell in volumes when you’re unexpectedly busy, customer service, and you’ll be a lot more stressed come kick off. Easy doing a few scattered orders here or there, but when you’re looking at a large queue out the hatch you have to slowly make your way through, you’ll regret not getting help. Go for it, hire 1 member of staff to start off and add another if or when you need to. Staff costs can be the easiest overhead to cover if you can pump it out fast.

If you haven’t worked in the food industry before, start there. A food truck isn’t for everyone and it’s definitely not all chill and easy peasy the way it seems from a customers point of view. If you’ve worked actual food service before (in an actual kitchen, not just a McDonald’s/Wendy’s kitchen) then try and work on a truck if one is hiring. But be transparent about your intentions or risk burning a very valuable bridge.

It’s perfectly possible to run a trailer/truck alone, I’m going into my third season doing it by myself. I have my bestie who comes for the really large events, but other than that it’s just me doing 100% of everything.

My advice, do your research before putting down a penny. Talk to every person you would deal with (health dept, local trucks, local town officials, etc) and then order from other trucks, watch what works, chat with them and ask non-invasive questions.

Every trailer/truck I’ve seen fail is because they either oversaturated the market (for us it was another taco truck) or didn’t do their research (expected to pull in 300+ orders daily in a town where that doesn’t happen on the busiest truck and ultimately had their trailer repo’d after their first season)

22 foot food truck. We need a "front" and "back" house. Solo for short periods of time while someone is on a break otherwise, no.

But, seriously. If you do not have a human plan you don't have a business plan. What if you get sick? Injured? That's right, you're closed down or closed for the day. Missing out on all that dough. Ruining food. Health code makes this more difficult in some places too

You should really go work on a truck to figure out if it is for you. Dreams aren't reality, and I think your reality and our reality are two different things.

We are a small coffee pop up and we have 1 employee who I pay based off of total sales we make. He gets 20% of our gross profit and half of tips. It’s working out well so far and keeps him motivated to help grow our movement as if he owns it too.

I’m in a cart pod with 18 other carts. The majority of us are owner/operated solo during the winter and then hire in March for the selling season. It’s a lot to keep up with solo. Not just the sales but the shopping, prep, cleaning, maintenance and 100 other things. During our busy season it takes 1 person just to keep up with meat and sauce prep, 1 to cook and 1 to assist with counter and cook.

I run my pizza ghost kitchen for the winter alone. But pizza has a 7 min bake time for me to answer pre-orders and take payment from customers. Tacos are too hands on, I would think. Unless you’re in Canada where a taco is $6. Then you might earn enough but not at $3.50/ taco.

Why don't you go work on a food truck for a few months before you just go all in. Jfc

You need to find someone that will work for cash to help prep man the grill. I’ve seen about 100 different food truck and have never seen a person taking orders, money, cooking, grabbing stuff from the fridge with no help. If you can do that you’ll be burnt out in a month. If you’re pulling in $1,000/day you can afford to pay someone hourly.

My husband thought he would be able to do it solo as well, but it’s not possible if you want to be profitable. he has been trying to find a partner with no luck. Right now our daughter helps him by running the register and getting the orders.

What happens when you need to pee?

Helper! Sometimes two... trust me from daily experience

Nice ol guy here has one but anyone who knows it’s not worth the wait. Too busy and he just can’t keep up and you wait and you wait. Go to the next truck.

It will be an all day thing.

You should focus on the business aspect first and prepare to work 12+ hours a day with a few hours dedicated to prep. If you are making quesadillas for example, you will need to make those tortillas fresh, and grate the cheese instead of using packaged.

Why not packaged? Because people can tell the difference and to focus on your business you need a good brand. You can save on costs as well assuming you can preserve the quality of your prepped menu.

You can have a solid profit margin once you figure out your prep and prep time factors, layout of kitchen supplies, menu, and costs per entree to costs per sale. You want to build on having returning customers. Once you have done this and make enough money to pay your own wage, pay back on supplies and gas, then can think of hiring people to help prep or with catering. I wouldn't start with catering until you have consistent menu items and a part timer, that way you can be efficient with your service and prep work.

I would personally prefer a part timer to help prep or cater as opposed to driving to location, setting up, and providing service. That should be your job until you have trained loyal workers who understand the menu. Managing growth is difficult on a small scale so you aren't likely to successfully hire and expand quickly before focusing on the business aspects first. Build the brand and then seek to expand by having investors if you need the money. And keep in mind people don't want to invest in a prepackaged quesadilla popup shop. You need to take the quality seriously.

We have a local truck similar to your idea. Very basic (but delicious). It takes 2 to run at lunch rush. One to take orders and one to prepare the food. Maybe you could just have a part time employee for the rush.

yes, you need help!