9.1. SR 11-20-2017 - Laserfiche WebLink

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6 She explains that “[t]he biggest misconception about this business is that it’s a way to get rich quick. Margins are tight, space is limited, and the market is unpredictable. So the reality is that you are never going to make a fortune from running a food truck.” Holmes describes workdays that begin at 9 a.m. and stretch to 3 a.m.: “People forget that we’ve been prepping for hours before our doors open,” Holmes said, “and we spend hours cleaning after we’re closed. And we do it all two or three times a day, sometimes 14 or 15 days in a row!” Furthermore, “[t]here is no such thing as time off, just time off the truck. We’re constantly emailing, making phone calls or sourcing product.”44 Holmes’ 18-hour workdays are not atypical. Even for operators who do a single meal service per day, the typical workday can range between 17 to 20 hours.45 And make no mistake, the work is hard. Indeed, many people who experience running both restaurants and food trucks believe that running the latter is at least as difficult—or more difficult—than running the former:  Celebrity Chef Ludo Lefevre has been a successful chef at some of Los Angeles’ best restaurants and in 2010 he opened his critically acclaimed LudoTruck, which serves “impossibly juicy… fried chicken [that] is pretty close to the godhead,” according to one famous critic.46 Ludo is undoubtedly well-positioned to compare the difficulty of running a restaurant with that of running a food truck. As he points out, much of the work is the same: “People don’t realize [that a food truck] is like a restaurant. You need to rent a commissary kitchen, hire a staff, and prep the staff. It’s the same headache of a restaurant. It’s not easy.” And he notes at least one way in which running a food truck is more difficult: “At the restaurant, you have a big walk-in; you can always go and get some more vegetables.” But with a food truck, “Sometimes our commissary kitchen is far away, and sometimes we’re going to run out of food. There’s nothing we can do.”47  Luke Holden started his Luke’s Lobsters restaurant in New York City in 2009, and he opened three more brick-and-mortar locations before launching his food truck, Mobile Nauti, which topped Zagat’s ratings of New York’s food trucks for two consecutive years. For Holden, it’s clear that his food truck is “more difficult to manage” than his restaurants. He says that his truck “has been more of an outreach tool than a cash-flow tool. There are a lot of inherent struggles that come with operating a truck. You can’t determine what the weather will do or parking issues. It’s a difficult business to build stability in, and if you can’t build stability in, it’s harder to staff.”48  David Schillace owns New York’s Mexicue restaurant, with two brick-and-mortar locations and a food truck. Based on his experience, “Hands down, bricks-and-mortar is easier.” He explains, “Running three or four trucks, then working sixteen hours a day, is a nightmare. And it’s still not going to make you rich.” He notes that finances are a lot less predictable and stable with food trucks because people tend to order more food at a restaurant than at a food truck.49 In sum, running a food truck is hardly an easy job. Indeed, given all of the difficulties encount ered by food-truck owners, it isn’t surprising that many of them want to transition from the food-truck business model to the more stable restaurant business model, where issues such as the weather and inventory limitations are no longer constant obstacles.50