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Food truck takes root in Jamaica Plain
By adamg on Wed, 07/06/2011 - 11:35am
Boston Restaurant News reports that Fill Belly's, which started out as a food truck serving up Southern-style comfort food, has converted itself into a sit-down restaurant at 3381 Washington St.
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Comments
So, so happy to hear this
So, so happy to hear this news! I only got to try their food once before their truck went AWOL, and now they're a restaurant 5 minutes from my house!
Hooray....
...for new businesses on this stretch of Washington Street!
Good!
For all their detractors, the food trucks are a good way for good ideas to get off the ground, and less well done ideas to die quickly without massive investments.
not really, no
I wish I remembered where I read it, but a food truck operator was interviewed and he talked about the costs involved. The truck is quite a bit of capital to build out properly.
Tens of thousands of dollars are necessary to properly equip a truck, plus a lot of know-how which very few people have, making the work problematic and expensive. You can't just buy a panel-van on Craigslist and cut a hole in the side. Clover Food Labs is a perfect example; they were pretty flush with initial funding.
Oh, and there are the logistics of operating a food-safe kitchen for hours without the conveniences of space and unlimited power and water are complex, making it difficult for someone who doesn't have a lot of experience in the industry to figure out.
There are shared kitchens in Boston which are much more conducive to providing a good startup or experimentation environment.
How much does a storefront operation cost?
I'm betting its much more than tens of thousands of dollars.
Then there are the leases, etc.
Portland's Pods have proven out the mobile/non-permanent platform as an incubator for restaurants and provider of employment. Clover is another operation that has succeeded, although they still have the trucks. Herrera's Burritos is another. There were some more at MIT in the 80s and 90s that became actual restaurants when the area around Lechemere station got built out.
Shared kitchens only work if you are catering. They don't work for people building restaurant clientele. They can't possibly address the dearth of affordable lunch options downtown like the trucks can, either. The big advantage of the truck is that they can be where people want to buy when they want to buy, too. Storefronts can't pull that off.
But still...
....despite it being more-costly-than-I'd-expected-before-reading-your-post, starting up a restaurant in a building has *gotta* be much, much more costlly, what with construction buildouts, leases, deposits, more premises insurance, etc.
It's not absolute cost that's
It's not absolute cost that's important, but relative cost. You're going to very limited in what you can sell from a truck. And trucks are seasonal and weather-dependent. Trucks may cost less up front, but the return is less.
For a small operation, you can go into a storefront and open a pizza/sub shop without a huge outlay. If you're building your own truck from scratch, that's big money, considering your investment will sit in a garage for months at a time.
Understood..
Definitely you're limited what you can sell from a truck. But when a business is in its infancy stage (i.e., just getting word out, has no customer base yet), that's a good problem to have. If/when they have so much demand that they *need* to expand into a building, they can then proceed to do so knowing they have that demand and a customer base. At that point they can also commit the money for that move--some of which they have made by that point, and the rest they can get from investors who would be more likely 'convinced' by the success of the truck.
And yes,I made that sound a LOT easier than it really is.
also the trucks can go to
also the trucks can go to where the hungry people are, which is obviously always shifting. Mobility allows them to steady different places at different peak times, like the financial district at lunch, or a campus mid afternoon, the various weeknight Farmers Markets, SOWA market on the weekends, etc. They can the hit big money calendar events too, like Lilac Sunday or the Head of the Charles. All the while getting visibility for their project all over town, rather than just in one neighborhood or community. They still need a homebase somewhere, but they can lease space in the cheaper areas while selling product in the more expensive areas. Plus, the truck advertises the product wherever they drive.
Lots of pro's against a few cons, many of which are inherent to any food business, on wheels or not. Ice cream purveyors understood this a long time ago, of course.
Downtown
"For a small operation, you can go into a storefront and open a pizza/sub shop without a huge outlay"
-Not in the financial district you can't. A restaurant space in a building downtown is going to require a term lease with tripple net rent. Although the truck may be a significant capital investment, it is fungible and can be liquidated to offset some of your debt if you go under. If you go out of business with a lease, the landlord is going to come after you for the remaining rent. The cost/benefit of food trucks in the neighborhoods is debatable but for downtown eating options the truck has to be cheaper than a stor front.
So I'm paying all that money
So I'm paying all that money to open a restaurant in the financial district, and you're going to park your truck on the street outside my place and skim off customers?
They aren't allowed to park anywhere.
I believe most of these food trucks have special spots where they can go to park and sell food. They can't go anywhere and everywhere.
Truck vs. PBJ and Banana
The truck is competing with home bought lunch. Nobody can afford your restaurant without an expense account.
Not here, but in NYC this is
Not here, but in NYC this is allowed.
Besides the truck can't compete with your seats, shade, a.c., heat, tvs, music, restroom, non-disposable utensils, and large menu. You are not sharing a completely overlapping clientele. There will be some sniping, but you're a free market guy, right?