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Hmm, I've spent the past few weeks considering starting a coffee truck thing. Better bookmark this.

by stef25 6y ago

azernik 6y ago
I think that would be less bad than trying to start a normal cafe. Part of the business case for food trucks is that the capital expenses are so much lower than buying and configuring a fixed space - the trucks themselves are more or less mass-produced, and servicing/cleaning can be taken care of by an specialist contractor. Now wouldn't be the time to do it, though, most of the coffee business is commuters and office workers on break, which... yeah. (I write operations software for food-service businesses, so I'm fairly familiar with the market dynamics.)
- stef25 6y ago
  Yeah, it seems like the people in that article didn't even do the most basic napkin calculations. My estimate is: you could start a towed coffee trailer for 10-12K, about 8K of that on the trailer, the rest on some basic equipment and decoration. Rent the espresso machine & grinder for 150 / month (including maintenance & repair) instead of buying for 8K. Food & drinks wholesale: croissants are 0.2, donuts 0.5, fancy Italian water 0.6 and they sell for at least 3x as much As the article says, even the most deluxe coffee is cheap. I calculated a cost of 1.09EUR for a latte, including 10g of coffee, 300ml of fair trade milk, a bio degradable cup + lid + sleeve and takes 3 min to prepare. The hard part is learning to operate a professional espresso machine and dealing with the local laws about food trucks. But yeah, best not during a pandemic.
  - azernik 6y ago
    I would argue that you're underestimating labor costs - your baristas still need to be paid even in between customers, when there's no latte-making to do. At my work, labor costing is something we don't even try to model, because it's much more complicated than food costing. Food cost at 30-35% of sale price, as it sounds like your latte cost indicates, is pretty much in the sweet spot for food service; it's also nice in that most of the ingredients for coffee keep well enough to minimize food waste. Pastries are more of a challenge to do efficiently.
- atwebb 6y ago
  Wouldn't now be a great time? Drive to different neighborhoods kind of like an ice cream man for adults (you could also have ice cream). Many, many planned developments aren't within walking distance of a coffee shop and a few bucks for some normality might fly. I've always thought the idea had legs, you can offer hot cocoa in the winter and setup a mobile fire pit for smores.
  - azernik 6y ago
    The key to such a business surviving is volume - there are lots of fixed costs and very narrow margins, so you need to be getting lots of people per operating hour. Driving around to various residential areas will just never get you nearly as many people as a busy street or an office district will, and the driving time itself will also kill your efficiency. (Generally, lunch and coffee places near offices do well, because office density is a LOT higher than residential density.) This is part of why food in less-dense areas dominated by big chains - when all your customers need to drive half an hour or more to get to you and food culture isn't driven as much by novelty-seeking, it's hard to get a following before your runway runs out. Big chains are very experienced/cost-efficient, and have the capital to last if things start slow.
prawn 6y ago
I would think that a mobile hospitality business is much much easier to spin up and down depending on demand. If you have a physical shopfront, you're likely committing to a multi-year lease. You're chained to that for some time. With a vehicle, assuming you have somewhere to park it, you can take a break for months, or sell it in a location that has more demand or run it purely for remote events. If you don't need to account for narrow streets in a big city, and congested parking, then short buses are often a steal in the US. Plus lots of room. That said, there is a coffee van owner who lives near me and they can easily park the vehicle in their double driveway.

Hmm, I've spent the past few weeks considering starting a coffee truck thing. Better bookmark this.

by stef25 6y ago

Hmm, I've spent the past few weeks considering starting a coffee truck thing. Better bookmark this.

I think that would be less bad than trying to start a normal cafe. Part of the business case for food trucks is that the capital expenses are so much lower than buying and configuring a fixed space - the trucks themselves are more or less mass-produced, and servicing/cleaning can be taken care of by an specialist contractor. Now wouldn't be the time to do it, though, most of the coffee business is commuters and office workers on break, which... yeah. (I write operations software for food-service businesses, so I'm fairly familiar with the market dynamics.)

stef25 6y ago
Yeah, it seems like the people in that article didn't even do the most basic napkin calculations. My estimate is: you could start a towed coffee trailer for 10-12K, about 8K of that on the trailer, the rest on some basic equipment and decoration. Rent the espresso machine & grinder for 150 / month (including maintenance & repair) instead of buying for 8K. Food & drinks wholesale: croissants are 0.2, donuts 0.5, fancy Italian water 0.6 and they sell for at least 3x as much As the article says, even the most deluxe coffee is cheap. I calculated a cost of 1.09EUR for a latte, including 10g of coffee, 300ml of fair trade milk, a bio degradable cup + lid + sleeve and takes 3 min to prepare. The hard part is learning to operate a professional espresso machine and dealing with the local laws about food trucks. But yeah, best not during a pandemic.
- azernik 6y ago
  I would argue that you're underestimating labor costs - your baristas still need to be paid even in between customers, when there's no latte-making to do. At my work, labor costing is something we don't even try to model, because it's much more complicated than food costing. Food cost at 30-35% of sale price, as it sounds like your latte cost indicates, is pretty much in the sweet spot for food service; it's also nice in that most of the ingredients for coffee keep well enough to minimize food waste. Pastries are more of a challenge to do efficiently.
atwebb 6y ago
Wouldn't now be a great time? Drive to different neighborhoods kind of like an ice cream man for adults (you could also have ice cream). Many, many planned developments aren't within walking distance of a coffee shop and a few bucks for some normality might fly. I've always thought the idea had legs, you can offer hot cocoa in the winter and setup a mobile fire pit for smores.
- azernik 6y ago
  The key to such a business surviving is volume - there are lots of fixed costs and very narrow margins, so you need to be getting lots of people per operating hour. Driving around to various residential areas will just never get you nearly as many people as a busy street or an office district will, and the driving time itself will also kill your efficiency. (Generally, lunch and coffee places near offices do well, because office density is a LOT higher than residential density.) This is part of why food in less-dense areas dominated by big chains - when all your customers need to drive half an hour or more to get to you and food culture isn't driven as much by novelty-seeking, it's hard to get a following before your runway runs out. Big chains are very experienced/cost-efficient, and have the capital to last if things start slow.

prawn 6y ago

I would think that a mobile hospitality business is much much easier to spin up and down depending on demand. If you have a physical shopfront, you're likely committing to a multi-year lease. You're chained to that for some time. With a vehicle, assuming you have somewhere to park it, you can take a break for months, or sell it in a location that has more demand or run it purely for remote events. If you don't need to account for narrow streets in a big city, and congested parking, then short buses are often a steal in the US. Plus lots of room. That said, there is a coffee van owner who lives near me and they can easily park the vehicle in their double driveway.