Right outside the door of many Home Depots, what’s the first thing you see as you leave? The guy selling hot dogs and polish sausages. The aroma hits you as the sliding door opens to release you from the world of plumbing supplies and lumber. You head back into the real world, thinking your on your way home to finish that important remodeling project, but no. Just one minute to give this vendor $2, and you’ve taken care of lunch. On you go, belching and tasting onions, as you head across the parking lot. Your hot dog is history before you make it to your car, and the lowly vendor has serviced at least 2-3 more people in that 3 minute span.
Think about it for a minute. In say, 5 minutes that vendor took in about $10. A quick calculation confirms if he sold each person one hot dog and a can of Coke, his total investment was about .50 to .60 for each person. Assuming five people, thats about $3 investment, from $10 sales, equals $7 profit. Not bad for 5 minutes work. 5 into 60 is 12 five minute periods to the hour. With traffic variations, lets cut that in half to 6 five minute periods per hour that you maintain $10 in sales. Thats amounts to $42 per hour profit, and with a four hour prime time sales window, that amounts to $168 per day profit for 4 hours work.
Not bad, it ain’t rocket science, but the profit margin is pretty darn good for the effort invested. Now obviously there are other charges to consider, the investment of the concession stand, possibly a percentage to the owner of the location your operating from. But overall a pretty decent living can be made from the likes of a small stainless steel two wheel cart, that does nothing more then boil water, allowing you to heat the product. In all reality a simple Coleman stove, with a pot from the kitchen, and a jug of water would accomplish the same thing. It’s the accepted appearance of the two wheel cart, with multi-colored umbrella that makes the sale for you.
For an investment of as little as $1999, you too can own the NSF Teen Weeny from All American Hot Dog Carts. Soon you will be on your way to a secure future. Selling hot dogs, the real American Food. Maybe hot dogs aren’t your thing, fear not, there are other options. Think warm cinnamon and sugar, how about Mini-Donuts.
Lil’ Orbit mini-donuts, let the smell of fresh fried donuts draw in your customers. They’ll sell faster then you can make them. With a cost of .25 per dozen that you can sell for $3.50, just think how fast you’ll be rolling in the money. Of course the investment is a bit higher, but you can find used machines on E-Bay for $2,000 or less. With the right location they’ll sell like, DONUTS.
Your afraid the monotony of selling the same old junk food will grow old? Do you have cooking skills beyond boiling water? If watching a little machine mindlessly drop circles of dough into hot oil doesn’t sound all that exciting, maybe a full scale mobile kitchen is the right direction for you.
With a concession trailer, set up as the kitchen of your dreams, what ever fine cosine you have in mind, can be prepared and sold. Family specialties, passed down through the generations, regional favorites, even gourmet dishes not found at the usual restaurant. Your options are wide open, the sky is the limit. Cook it and they will come. Of course the investment has risen exponentially, a fully decked out concession trailer can run you $50,000 or more. But if your good, and the product is right, this can be a huge money maker. E-Bay has many examples listed that can address any venue.
From one extreme to another, you say you don’t want to cook at all? There are still a couple options that will work. A Cold Catering Truck, the pickup truck with stainless steel body on the back that comes around to business’s at lunch time to sell sandwiches, pastries, fruit or coffee and pop. Maybe candy or even ice cream treats. With ice in the chill box you purchase already package items at whole sale prices, and go from place to place selling at retail. Construction sites are always a good source of people in need of quick food, factories are another. Do a search for Catering Trucks on E-bay, you’ll find quite a few to chose from.
The jingle, jingle of the ice cream truck, slowly coming down the streets of every residential neighborhood. Kids running from every house with their dollar in hand looking for the old familiar Rocket Pop, or Drum Stick. A garishly painted converted mail truck, with a cold box freezer in the back. The brighter the better, with the annoying music box playing the same short tune over and over. Heard from blocks away, and anticipated every hot summer day. Most any old van will do the trick, clean it up and buy some sickening pastel paint colors and your on your way.
This all looks very simple doesn’t it. Buy some equipment and go to work. Well….. not really, the government has to be involved as usual. Every state requires permits, inspections, licenses, etc., and every state is different in its requirements. This is a project that can take a fair amount of research, to get going in a way that won’t have the authorities knocking on your door in short order. The list of agencies may include state, county, and city government. The Dept. of Agriculture, the Health Dept. and the Tax Dept. There is quite a bit of red tape to go through to get into any kind of food handling operation.
Its not all gloom and doom, the simpler ones, hot dog carts, cold truck, ice cream truck, are usually much simpler to get licensed. They are considered basically Safe Food as there is no cooking, the food is fully cooked from your supplier. Hot dogs are a reheat situation, and the other two are on ice or frozen.
Some states require you operate out of a licensed kitchen, and some will allow you to buy your product whole sale in the morning, and selling out by the end of the day. This means no storage of food or supplies and no licensed kitchen will be required.
The important thing to remember is contact your own local authorities before you invest a bunch of money into any kind of a food related business or equipment. They must be involved up front, they want to know what your plans are and how your equipment will be installed before, rather then after you have built, or bought it. Failure to do this may result in your being shut down before you even get the chance to open your doors for business.
The next most important issue is the old real estate slogan, its Location, Location, Location when it comes to success. If there isn’t any traffic, or the wrong type of traffic you’ll go broke real quick. Do your research carefully.
There are CD’s available on E-Bay that supposedly have the health department requirements for all states. A good resource to get you started, but be sure to still get the government involved before you start setting up your portable gold mine. You want to be on your way to riches, not quickly going into ruin.
www.allamericanhotdog.com
www.orbie.com
www.ebay.com
