$54K/Month Food Truck Business (What Did It Cost to Start?)

Would you guys like to know how much a food truck owner makes? It will definitely surprise you. My name is Saeed. I'm the owner of Ebla Mediterranean Grill, and I own three trailers. And I will show you how to make $200,000 a year by opening a food cart business. That sounds incredible, you guys. Let's get started. Tell us a little bit about your background, your story, and what got you into this business. Yeah, I started as a child with my mom back home in Syria from a small village. I'm a farmer. And now I'm in the U.S. for the last 21 years. I started my first food truck in 2004. It was hard because I didn't have any money. I had to borrow money from here and there to open my first food cart. But why a food cart? You could have started a restaurant, any other business. Why this particular food truck business? I didn't know better. I'm a cook. I couldn't open a restaurant. Food cart is a good way, and it's low risk. You can take it anywhere. You can sell it whenever you like. You can move it wherever you like. Sayid, let's talk about monthly expense. Where are you dollar-wise per month, and what's the biggest expense monthly? It's a tough question. It depends. If you're family operated, it doesn't cost you too much to operate a trailer, like maybe $200 a day, $300. Food cost, propane, gray water, electricity and rent, insurance, tax. If you have employees, to break even, you need to make $500 a day, at least. With two employees, I'm guessing. To break even. So the biggest expense is labor? Labor, biggest expense, yes. And then what would be the other one after that? Food cost. Food cost, okay. Food cost. You're obviously paying rent here. What is that per month here, at least? Here, it's not bad. It used to be $1,200. Now it's $1,350. How does that compare to other locations? Is that pretty good? Pretty good, actually. Other locations could be busier than here, because they have a tent, they have fire pit outside, they heat their customer more. I mean, this is a big lot. It's hard to heat up. $2,500, some other lot to start, which is, that's really expensive to start a food cart. Don't be afraid. If it's a good lot, you're going to make it. But don't be afraid of the rent. I did. I was afraid once, and I regret it big time. Afraid to pay big rent? I lost a good location, and I regret it big time. Let's talk about what you need to do to secure the best location, the steps to do that. Is it a contract? Is it relationships? Is it tips, tricks? To be successful in the location, first of all, you have to make sure this location has more than one food cart, at least 10. Make sure it has a brewery, the most important key to be successful. Brewery or a bar, not a tent, not plastic, but a bathroom. Make sure you have a regular bathroom, gray water disposal goes in the city water. Make sure you have a good bar, which is heated in the winter, and have an AC in the summer, so people are comfortable to eat and come down. Playground, firebed, tent, this all indication it's going to be a good location. Neighborhood. Neighborhood is very important. Parking. Make sure it has a parking around the lot. That's another indication it's going to be a successful lot. You have to give it at least one year. Don't just change location to location. You will never be successful. Sit there. Even if you're losing money, sit there and wait. Just work how you become successful. Fix your mistakes. Do not just change location. You think you're going to be okay. No. Okay. Is that the mistake you can make? Is thinking, oh, the next location is the winner. The next location is the lottery. Exactly. It happened to me. But you're saying stay in the same spot, even though... At least a year. At least. It's not overnight. Okay. Some locations take time. Some locations start like this. Usually, most of the location, at the first month, they get really busy and then die down because it's a new location. It's a new car. It's a new concept. A new food and variety. Look, we have 30 food carts. In here. Each one of them is different. Nice. Yeah. No competition, which is great. That's awesome. Sayyid, what's the difference between a stationary unit that you have versus like a mobile food truck? What are the pros and cons to both? Big difference. Okay. Stationary, making money every day, seven days a week. Food truck, you have to have a kitchen. You have to drive around, take a risk, insurance. You don't have event every day. You have event in the summer, festival. But in the winter, you don't really. You don't make any money, maybe. But stationary, you have the location. People know where you are. They come to you every single day, seven days a week. Money-making, seven days a week. So this would definitely be making more money than a mobile food truck. For sure. 100%. That's a good tip. Take us inside. Kind of show us anything unique or anything like that. Yes. I mean, you got an open layout, basically. Is this pretty much the same for most or different? All my carts are exact, made the same. Open, open. This way, customers see who's making their food, and they see your hand, they see your face. I want the customer to interact with their cook. That's a trust issue. We have to, good for them to see what's happening here. The second, for whoever wants to start a food cart business, make sure you have a width, eight foot. You don't want to be going back and forth and bumping in each color. You have to have one cashier here, the cook, the main cook here, and the backup help, the prep cook here in the summer, mostly. Make sure everything you lay out your menu, you have to have a map of your menu. This way, it's just quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. You don't want to look for things, open, and look, make sure everything up there. If you need a bigger one, prep table, have a bigger one. Make space for it. If you have a big fryer, you can at least fire 10 order fries, like that 35 pound fryer. Make sure you have a stove to cook your rice for big orders. Grill is hot and sizzling. You're ready to go. Ready to go. Make sure your floor is clean. I see people skating inside their food cart. That's not okay. Make sure you have a mat. Pay company to come and clean them every month for you. In terms of hacks, things that really changed your business, can you think of anything that you can share with our audience? What's a game changer that you can share with us? Yes. Represent yourself. Be authentic. Good picture, fresh menu. Spend the money. Don't be cheap. Make sure people see you, see what you do. Be obvious. Build the website. Put yourself out there. Have people give you reviews. That's the best way to be successful. Those are the ways to stand out? Yes. Awesome. What kind of margins do you go for on your food stands? Is it 20%, 10%, 30? Well, with employees, you go about 20%. Family, you go about 50%. Nice. Okay. That's a big difference. That's why I say family, family, family. If you can, but with employees, you're thinking it's an average about 20%? 20%, yes. Okay. I want to dive into the monthly revenue as well. Where are you at on average? I know Oregon's six months cold, six months summer. Yeah. On average, what would you say your food trucks are generating per month? You can say winter and then summer. Well, winter is Oregon. You don't make money in Oregon State. It's cold. It's cold. It depends if you have a good gig next to a bar or next to a brewery and they have heaters, and then yes. Right. In the summer, if you do 1,500, just calculate it. What you do seven days a week, that's calculated. So what is that? Like 50 grand a month? Yeah, you do 50 grand, about 40, 50 grand a month. Not bad. In the summer. I know food cart do about 100 grand a month. Like sushi carts, Boki Bowl, some cart do 100 grand a month. I'd love to know if you guys comment below, let us know how COVID impacted your business in terms of you adjusting to it as well. I'm sure you've gone through some of the other things. So you guys, please comment. We read all the comments and we greatly appreciate that as well. How do you manage multiple locations? Well, that's what's everyone asking me, the same exact question. It's a great question. How you do it? Hard work, running around from cart to cart, using good system, using numbers. You have to write down, make sure your books, your food cost, your barrel cost, your rent, your utility. You have to know your numbers to be successful. Running around, great idea. Honestly, to me, I have to make sure I test my food every day. I check if it's fresh. I check the rotation of the food is fresh or not. If the employee doing their job, they're doing sanitation, they're cleaning, they're serving the right food, the lunch. And you're doing that on each location every day? Almost every day. This is what I do. I start 9, 10 o'clock. I finish around 8, 9 o'clock at night, even though I have a big family too now. Man, that's a big commitment. Yes, it's not. To be spread out over three locations like that. To be successful, you have to be there. For somebody watching that wants to get into the food truck business, what would your number one key to successfully launching, starting one be? What would you tell them right now? Make sure you have enough cash to open a food cart in at least six months. Make sure you have some experience, cooking experience, and work in a food cart for a while, a restaurant, marketing, know your number, knows your suppliers, knife skill, all that sanitation, your books. Sounds like you're saying, go work for somebody first, see the A to Z. 100%. Go work for someone else. Go to work food cart. See how stressful or how stressful. Yes, it's very stressful. For real. Can you handle stress? Can you handle 50 people waiting online and they want food now in one minute? How you can handle that? What do you look for when you want to hire somebody? And what do you pay your current employees right now? Experience, word of mouth. That's most of my employee. When I get my employee word of mouth, experience. Sometimes I put ads and it's not cheap. And now it's minimum wage is $14. I pay my employee about $17 an hour, plus tip, I make about $25 an hour. That's average employee. Tips are about $25 an hour? No, about $10 an hour extra. Oh, $10 an hour. About $25. And I don't take the tip. I give my tip to my employees. I will never mess with my employee tip. That's to make my employee happy. You got to give them their tip. They earn it. That's their tip. It's not yours. For sure. How many people do you have at this location and others? I'm usually on average. I have two each in the winter. In the summer, I have four. It depends. Per location? Yeah, the weather. Because you have to shift. You have nine, ten to three, four. And then you have four, five, two, eight, nine o'clock. Sometimes we close at 10. It depends how busy. Gotcha. Because we have a bar here. Alcohol. People want to stay late and eat food late. You have to stay open. So you catch the last crowd. That's when you make the money. How much are you spending on advertising? And through what platforms to bring new customers to your brand here? I remember I spent on Yelp about $5,000 a year. $5,000 a year? A year on advertising. That's monthly. Sometimes in Google, they do it by click. And it's not cheap. It's expensive. And gift cards, clicks, like on Square, they do a program, like a reward. If you buy 10 sandwiches, the 11th sandwich is free. That brings customers back. Free soda, free baklava. So if you're spending on Yelp $5,000, obviously it's worth your investment? Not always. Let's be honest. Not always. It depends where you are and what kind of advertising you're doing. Because you have to target specific things. It's not generalized things. You have to be specific what you advertise. Also, let's say the phone rings, now the delivery starts. Clubhub, Uber Eats. People are ordering on the phone. Yeah. Online, now Square. People order online. They pay. They come pick it up. That's good business in the winter to have in Oregon. Gotcha. So talking to you, it's clear that food quality is very important. Anything else you want to add in terms of what goes on your menu? What's the process like? The main key is to use fresh ingredients. Fresh garlic, fresh parsley. Do not use belder garlic or use dry herbs ingredients. Use fresh herbs. Use fresh romaine heart, night iceberg. Fresh chicken, not frozen. Cut it yourself. Marinate it overnight. Add fresh ingredients. Do not be cheap. Do not cut corners. That's why people are not stupid. They will know. They find out. Customers are smart. They will know. Fresh from frozen. Just make sure your food cost is under 30%, 25%, 30%. If it goes over 50, that's a red flag. Saeed, how do you delight your customers and stand out from all these other guys in this parking lot? First one knows your name. If you cannot, at least a big smile. A discount once in a while. A free meal. If he doesn't have his wallet, give it a free meal. That's not McDonald's here. Give him a free meal. If he is short on a dollar, give it to him. It's not a big deal. Be friendly. Have a reward program. In Square or Clover, they have a discount. If you spend 11, 10 is free. Once in a while. Once a month. You do that? Yes. People love that. Can you describe more about that? The program. Is it a card? Is it a punch card that you give out? We used to have a punch card or a click card. That's the only thing you have to be careful though. We had the punch card from Winco. People started bringing cards over and over. Even though in two days, I have a full card. And that didn't work. Yeah. We know what's going on there. It has to be on Square, on the system. Has to be registered. Makes sense. No more punch card. That's not a good idea. Don't do that. Lots of free gyros after that, right? Yes. It destroyed me. I'm going to put you on the spot. How much is your Euro cost? What is the cost for a Euro? Now with that inflation is going. Right. What would you say? At least $5. Really? Yes. Five bucks to make a Euro? Yes. With all the ingredients in it? Yeah. Because now every month it goes up, it goes up, it goes up. I know. It's non-stop. And I'm afraid to raise my prices. But don't be afraid. If the customer like you, they'll come to you. Even if you raise your prices. Some people, they get like iffy the first week or two, like, ah, dollar. But after that, they come back to you and they forget about it. There you go. But please don't be afraid to raise your prices. You need to make money to be there for them. There you go. A lot of them, 90%, they will not say a word. They will say, good for you. Make money. I want you to be here. I want to come and eat my good gyros, my good fish and chips, you know? What are the most profitable locations? Give us a quick summary again. Great questions. Neighborhood, alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, brewery. That really helps, huh? Heating, fire pit, tent, good building. Because people is not going to sit outside in the cold and heat in the summer. They have to be somewhere to eat warm or cold in the summer. That's where they can be comfortable. That's the location. And the parking, very important for the customers. Look after these things. Right, okay. Yeah, alcohol, parking, place, kids, dog allowed. You know, all this key point for successful location. Okay, keep note of that, you guys. And check out our blog, upflip.com forward slash blog, where you can find step-by-step instructions on how to start and operate a successful food truck business. Check it out right now. How do you as a business owner find the best deal for your supplies, your food, et cetera? Give us the specifics on what you do. Do good research. Cash & Carry, Restaurant Depot, local suppliers, a farmer market. If you have, if you get organic products, which is the best to sell your products, just call around, call Restaurant Depot, call Cash & Carry, talk to friends. Make sure you know what's out there. Good prices, good quality, good products. You know, you have to work hard to get that products to your cart, to be successful owner. And cheap, with the cheap prices. But again, cheap and good, not cheap and bad. Right. Saeed, how important are customer reviews in your business? And what are some tips and tricks to get those reviews? Oh boy, very, very important. Sometimes you got to pay to get those reviews, like pay Yelp to put ads. Right. Which is politics. Google, you got to get those reviews. A lot of customer, they will do it without telling you. They just appreciate you and they give you reviews. Right. And some customer, they unhappy. They leave you bad review. But you need to talk to these customers so they come back and fix that review and get their food back or their lunch or their money back. This way, they're satisfied. But the reviews are really, really important. Very important. Do you have a system in place that you use to ask for reviews? Or not at this point? I don't. Okay. But you should have at least talk to them, tell them, remind them. You know, some people have a text, they text their customer. They have their phone. Right. Emails, you know, they have program. If you let me, you know, Yelp doesn't like that sometimes. If you tell customer to leave review, they don't like it. They take it down. Oh. Which happened to me many times. They accuse me of telling my customer and they remove stars, five-star reviews, 15, 25-star reviews. Why? I don't know. But they leave the bad ones. So let's talk about your first food truck. Can you break down for our viewers the cost? So if you spent 10 grand, how did you spend it? And where can our viewers get the best deal on a food truck? My first food truck, I bought it 1963 at Camber. It was old truck and cost me about $10,000, $15,000. Just for the truck? Just the food truck. Okay. And fully built out? Fully built out about around $18,000. My first food truck in 2003. Okay. After that, my other truck is brand new. It cost about $28,000 to $30,000. Then now about $50,000 and a good food truck, about 50 grand, at least $50,000. Okay. How would you source the right one? I mean, go buy used or go buy new? I mean, I know it all depends on budget, but where can we find the medium? Well, it depends what budget you have. I mean, I prefer to buy used and good shape and it's quick. You can open a week later, but it's about $25,000 to $30,000 used. And you want about $50,000 like this truck over here, $50,000 at least. I want to follow up on that one hack. What's another thing that you would share with our food truck enthusiasts on what they can do to have a game-changing business? Be specific. One item menu is great idea now. One item. Don't be afraid. One item. That sounds scary. Small menu. No, never. I have example. I have Whole Bowl, Kamen Kai. They are the most successful business in Oregon right now. One item. Just one item. Rice Bowl, Whole Bowl, Kamen Kai, chicken and rice. So having 20 items on the menu is not necessarily a good thing. No, not always. Sometimes, but not always. What are some tips that you can share with us in terms of prep, efficiency, and so forth? What do you do? Do festival. You have to be equipped. Festival is a game-changer. You have to have a kitchen. Chemistry kitchen. And you have to have a b-bowl. And you have to have a prep for at least 1,000 people. Wow. You got to be ready. Because some festival, you do 500 customers in four hours. So what's different about prep for a festival versus an average day for you? 200 customers a day in the summer. OK. Instead of 1,000 customers in the same time manner. So what would you do at that point? Would you hire more people? More people. You have to have seasonal high schoolers. A lot of I hire seasonal people. I talk to Brisbane Charities. I try to hire people as much as I can. This way, you have enough staff to cover the festival. You have to have seven people on a food truck on a festival. At least five people. You have two cashiers, two cooks, two backup. You have to have enough people to be able to serve that 50 people line. When you see that 50 people line, you got to keep up. What software or systems do you use on a day-to-day operation of your business? Because you showed me something off camera. Can you mention that? Like where you can monitor three locations at the same time. Well, through what system is that? iPhone, iPad, laptop. You got to see your square. You got to see your register. What's happening? Where it's busy, where it's not busy. It makes you feel good when you see like this location is busy. And when you see there's no business, you stress out. You get stressed out. You know, like you have your camera, security camera on the phone. You can watch it from everywhere you are. Is that a subscription that you pay for? What does it cost you? I don't. I found a good system. I don't have to pay. I got Erlo system. What kind of system is it? It's called Erlo. Erlo? Erlo. Oh, okay. Erlo and good to have security camera. Very important for theft, for employee, for accidents. Some people like, oh, I flip and fall. Oh, I'm suing you. Right. It's good to have it. Yeah. Even customer, they accuse you of something they have not done. Especially these days. You should have it. So events are obviously a good thing for business. Yeah. Does it cost to get in them? And what does that do for the business in terms of profits? Some festival, you do great money. You do about $5,000 to $10,000. Wow. They take 10% cut. Okay. So they take about 10%. Yeah. Some festival, you lose money. Why? Because they brought too many trailer. They got greedy. They charge too much to be there. And also the weather. I see. Okay. If it's rainy and cold and people do not show up. Or they charge like in the door. They charge like fee. Like entrance fee. People afraid to show up. How do I know that it's the right choice for me then? As a food truck owner watching this right now. And it's learning. I've got 10 events to choose from. How do I know one is a winner and the other is a flop? Do your homework. Look in YouTube. See, it's really that festival. It's really that busy. You mean like previous years? Yes, previous years. You see, ask them about numbers. Ask a question about. Ask who the vendor was last year. Talk to that vendor. Okay. That's a good point. Do you get sold out of food? Yeah. I did the event on Hood River last year. It's called the Camber. Like van. Like Sprinter van. And I was ready to go. And I made five grand that day. All right, you guys. Blitz time with Saeed. Saeed, let's jump into it. 10 seconds to 15 on each question. This is from our fans. Thank you guys for submitting your questions. June asked, how do you decide what goes on the menu? You have to do research and look around. See what you're good at. Play around with it. Have customer tested. Have a friend over. Mario asked, how do you keep the food consistently good at all locations? If you have more than one cart, you have the kitchen and cook. Same recipe to cook all for the cart. Like make sure there's the same recipe goes on all for the cart. Monitor your recipes. Because some people will change your recipe without telling you. I catch people doing that to me. Mahad asked, how do you prevent your employees from stealing from you? Is that even a valid question? Does that happen? In the last 10 years, I catch over 12 people taking my money. Two of them managers. Wow. How do you prevent that? I have security cameras 24 hours over their heads. This is from Edu Crespo. Do you need to know how to cook the food yourself? I mean, probably an obvious answer, but. Oh boy. Yes, sir. You have to know how to cook the food very well. Or you can just hire somebody. No, I don't recommend that. You got to know what you're doing. If you hire somebody and if he throw the apron at you, what are you going to do? Right. Close your business. All right. And the last question from JJ Lee is how do you protect your business or food truck mobile from crime? Security cameras, good locks. Don't be cheap on the lock. Bad lock, dead bad locks. Like good metal, you know, make sure you secure the window from inside. Don't have just a glass window and you won't be able to not steal your car. What about common mistakes that food truck owners make? What comes to mind? Try to be as open to customer. Sometimes you have to their problem. They'll tell you about their problem, their divorces, stories. If you have time, listen to them. That's one of the main key I do. So the mistake is just what would be the mistake specifically? Don't be just about money only. OK. Like I have friends 20 years ago. I still friend with them, my customer. They still come back to me. We became friends. They came to my house. We eat dinner with me sometimes. Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, that's how you build a relationship. You know, be like almost they come home. They want to eat. They feel home. They know they're going to say to eat lunch. It's like home. So the mistake that I'm sort of interpreting with your answer is they're not focused on building a relationship with their customers. Yes. Here's the money, money, money. Yeah, here's here's here's your food. Give me the money. I don't I don't know you. Exactly. And make sure people see how clean you are. Make sure you have your gloves on. Make sure make sure don't eat while you're talking. Make sure your mouth is clean. Your teeth clean. Don't have parsley. Make sure your food is the same. Consistency. Make sure it's clean. Because even a regular customer, if they come once and twice and the food is like every time is different. Yeah. Oh, boy. They want to come back. That's true. And guess what? Every time you lose a customer, they will take with them 25 customers. Wow. And that's take a long time. That's a big. Because an office is 25 employees, 30 employees. They will talk. That's true. They will talk. Said, give me a gyro with hair on it today. That's destroyed. How often do you get repeat customers and how do you bring them back? Good question. Quality consistency. Good food. They come back. I have a customer comes almost three times a week. Okay. For the last 10, 15 years. I'm like, whoa, you didn't get tired of it? They should come back. Which is like great. Appreciate it. They love it. Nice. Okay. So consistency, obviously good. Rewards. Good food. Rewards. Good smile. You know, they come back to you. The basics. This doesn't sound like rocket science. Yeah, exactly. Easy. What's your favorite business book, if any, in wrap up? We love wrapping up interviews by asking that question. Not specific. I use, whenever I need something, I go to Google. I use Yelp. And I'm sorry. YouTube. So no books, but YouTube and Google is your business go to. Yeah. Whenever I need it, I go and I find many books and many ideas, many recipes and anywhere. Managing, tax, insurance, plumber. You can find anything. Yeah. But I do everything almost myself. I do plumbing. I'm the plumber. I'm an electrician. I'm the handyman. I do a lot of things myself. So I save money. Okay. Well, this has been great, Saeed. I appreciate it. And we want to show our audience more about how you guys make and prep your food. So why don't we do that? Before we wrap it up, check out our podcast, you guys. It is an incredible podcast that I guarantee you stands out from all the rest. upflip.com forward slash podcast. We talk to people like Saeed, ask more specific questions. Incredible content there for you. Check it out. Well, I hope you enjoyed it.