Food Trucks for an American Recession!

Hey,

Through the recession my dad has gone through a lot of jobs. He owns his own video rental place but evil forces known as blockbuster, netflix, and redbox have made it difficult for much progress. Eventually he plans to shut down the store in the coming couple of years and move onto something more. Since 2008 my dad has worked for Wal-mart (I'm ashamed to admit that I was a little bit embarrassed about this when I was in high school), realtors agency, electrician, and an orderly for a hosptial. Most recently he has worked for a funeral home company picking up dead bodies in a hearse and bringing them to the funeral home whenever they... well, croak. This means that he is on call at all ungodly hours of the night. When he is called to get a body at 3 a.m., he has to drag himself out of bed, put on a suit and drive out to who-know's-where Pennsylvania and make the delivery. He tends to love this job because he loves to talk to people. He can make anybody laugh even with a dead body in the room.

However, he just got fired from this job last month for arguing over salary. This put enormous stress on my family, especially my mother. While he still has his video store and the hospital job, together they both barely make ends meet. Don't be worried though because he was offered a full time job at another funeral home with less strenuous hours on my 50 year old daddy.

While that is a God send my father has higher ambitions for himself. Bigger dreams that you and I would say to them "um, what?" In fact I did. I walked into the kitchen, and right there on the table was an unmistakable copy of "Starting a Food Truck Company: For Dummies" and "50 Great Food Truck Recipes." Yes. My father wants to start his own food truck company and have me work summers for him. I looked through the pages of the books wondering where on earth this idea could have come from. Immediately my dad pulled up a video online called Food Truck Revolution. I must admit that I was a lot more impressed than I thought I would be.

People who don't have the money to start restaurants, start food trucks. More often than not the food truck becomes an actual eating establishment but the truck lives on. I didn't realize how amazing the food that comes from them can be. It's funny because you can name your food anything you want at a food truck whereas a restaurant you would want to name your food something sophisticated. One food truck named one of their choices "Big Ass Sandwich" solely based on the fact that it really was a humungous sandwich.

There are setbacks however to running a foodtruck. If you have a truck with only one window, it limits you to one side of the street. The trucks themselves are the most expensive cost. For Dummies says that you should spend no more than 15,000 on your truck but the ones that sell for good are at least 25,000. Not only that but then you would have to have a mechanic check out the truck for fear of fault machinery. An ice cream truck is more expensive than burger truck. A pizza truck needs to have a  ceramic oven in it, which makes the temperatures in the truck unbearable hot. And the time tested question, where do you go to the bathroom?

BUT THINK OF THE GOOD STUFF. You can take your business anywhere. If you have to move, your business moves with you. Festivals and fairs often hire food trucks because the mess is easier to clean up. There is less customer attitude because they don't sit down to eat... they leave. When there's a concert in Philadelphia you can drive your truck right up to it and serve food to the multitude of people. Food truck food is less expensive but have more customers than an average restaurant. With the great social networking of the generation one can simply tweet "#LarrysBurgers Going to be in front of Lincoln Financial field between 12-3. Go Eagles!" and you will find a swarm of hungry costumers coming to your truck from wherever they are. It's becoming a wildly popular idea among the masses. One that I hope happens for my dad.

The other night my dad got all excited about this food festival on Germantown Avenue, in Philadelphia. We took my friend Matt who is always excited about new food. Me, my dad, and Matt arrived on the street and all you could see among the huge crowds were food trucks. As many that could meet the eye. There was your standard, italian, burger, and ice cream trucks. But then they got creative. There was a vegan truck, a Mexican bar-b-que truck, Native American inspired truck, grilled cheese truck, a hot doggery truck, and even a beer distributor truck. All of the food was delicious. The Native American inspired food truck even had blueberry soup, I didn't taste it for fear of wasting 3 dollars. But I did have one of their bean and cheese empanadas. 3 dollars well spent.

This was the menu for The Dapper Dog. At food truck conventions

they only offer 2-4 types of their food. On regular work days just driving around the

menu is more complete. Food truck only put out their best selling products

when they are competing.

My favorite truck was called Vernalicious. I had the most amazing mozzarella and pesto grilled cheese. The service was friendly, the food was great, the truck was adorable, all sorts of sauces were available at the ready. This particular truck also appeared at the Train concert just recently in Philly much to my delight. This is one truck that I would follow around on twitter... if I had a twitter. If you ever get a chance to try food truck cuisine, I say go for it.

This was the best truck in my opinion. Look for it if you're ever in Philly.

Delicious grilled cheeses.

Yours,

Lou