10 Cool and Unique Food Truck Ideas

Published on January 17, 2017 at 4:10 am by Jay Martin in Lists

Looking for cool and unique food truck ideas? Great, as we have prepared a real treat for you!

Hungry? Of course you are. Whether you want to eat some dough on the go or if you’d rather make some –there’s no better option than food trucks. With over 4,000 trucks in the U.S., they are on the rise in most major cities with a 12.4% increase in revenue over the past 5 years.

The overall food service growth rate has hovered around 5% the past few years, with fast casual being the most successful of all. Innovation is a great help to meet the customer’s standards. This is where food trucks come in. People who traditionally could not afford to startup a full restaurant are able to dive into the industry. This has been particularly good for those with a small budget and a dream. Startup budget for food trucks is estimated at $85,000 when compared to $275,000 for a brick and mortar restaurant.

Food trucks can help spotlight an uncommon or quirky menu, showcase a type of inventive food pairing, or help promote a specialty cuisine. As we mentioned, all of this can be accomplished with the lessened risk of a much smaller investment. Movies like Chef with Jon Favreau also depict another route–the storied restaurant chef remaking himself as a roadside attraction.

What’s most critical is integrating with social media to promote your truck and to keep people abreast of your location. Tight competition to neighboring restaurants should not be set aside, but we should take it as a challenge to improve more on our craft. I remember following the first food truck I ever heard of on Twitter. Big Gay Ice Cream was a sensation–showing up in Union Square on hot days. They had a great gimmick–cereal toppings and other crazy concoctions on soft serve ice cream–a play on the average ice cream truck. It was somewhere between gourmet and Dairy Queen.

Within a few years, they had a brick and mortar store in the East Village and have since opened another in the West Village. They continue to expand. However, food trucks is where they got their start. It isn’t likely they could have succeeded going the traditional route or would have what they do today without them.

But how easy and realistic is it really to run your own truck? One should take into consideration the type of meals on our menu, the business permits and health related permits that different cities require, the number of people that would work with you like the cook and servers, and the cost to put up all these. For business and health sanitation permits, food trucks are held to a similar standard as restaurants.

To get started all you need is the truck, upgraded with a kitchen and have a window for customers to place and receive their orders. For manpower, one or two persons is enough depending on what you plan to sell. Take also into consideration the parking, not only where you will park during your business hours but also the parking area after business hours–where can you store the truck?

There are a lot of food truck themes–certainly no end to the cool and unique food truck ideas. You can allow customers to sample your native delicacies with a twist, vegan delights, or desserts and sweets. Brainstorming with your family or friends is a good start. Read books about food or even search the internet for any food truck ideas. Just like any other businesses, you should stick up with your food truck business for the first few years. Normally, you will be able to see the gain especially for a traditional business like this after 3 to 5 years of operation. We filtered through the finalists and winners of The Vendy Awards and then looked for the best reviews on those finalists. If you’re not sure if food trucks are the way to go–you can also look up to our list of 11 Most Profitable Businesses with Low Start Up Costs.

Now come get a taste of our 10 cool and unique food truck ideas!