Mobile restaurants, aka food trucks, have been gaining steam across the nation the past several years, and they’ve recently caught on in Springfield. Operators say the portable eatery model is attractive because of the lower startup and operating costs and the ability to pick up and move a business in order to cater to customers on the go.
The Traveling Taco, a food trailer that hitches to its owner’s truck, has been serving up a variety of food two days a week at the Expedia building’s parking lot, 500 W. Kearney St. The trailer is normally anchored at Fremont Avenue and Sunshine Street, next to Kaleidoscope, but co-owner Charlotte Turnbull said the Expedia site attracts up to 400 people a day.
Since launching in September 2010, The Traveling Taco has collected some street buzz, and last year it nearly found a spot on a national reality television show, “The Great Food Truck Race.”
“We got nominated for Season 3 of the Food Network show. Out of 257 trucks that got nominated, we were No. 16,” said Turnbull, who owns and operates the mobile business with her husband, Rick. “You had to be in the Top 10 to go on to Season 3. But I was good with being 16th.”
Charlotte Turnbull said average daily sales hover between $650 and $800, and 2011 revenues topped $100,000. Nothing on the Traveling Taco menu exceeds $7, and she said the average customer ticket runs about $5.50. While the fan favorite is the deep-fried flour tortilla taco, Turnbull said she’s expanded the offerings beyond traditional Mexican cuisine based on customer requests.
“I’m really thinking outside of the box,” said Turnbull, who also serves up lunch in the lot of the Jack Henry & Associates’ Springfield campus one day a month. “We now do black angus burger and fries, chili dogs and spicy chicken sandwiches. Tuesday is now all-American day for us.”
While food trucks can stand alone as their own businesses, others complement brick-and-mortar operations.
Seth Hoerman, manager of the German family-owned Hörrmann Meat Farmers Market at 1537 W. Battlefield Road, also operates the Hörrmann Meat Bratwurst Hutte, a mobile lunch dispensary that fronts Battlefield in the butcher shop’s parking lot.
The wooden hut, custom built by Hoerman’s father Rick, serves bratwurst and smoked meatloaf sandwich lunches six days a week. The Hoerman family got started in meat processing in 2003, and last year added the retail store.
“The product we’re most known for are the brats,” Hoerman said. “We decided with opening the store in Springfield that it would be a good opportunity to put the hut up by the road and give people a chance to try our stuff.”
The Hörrmann hut has been in operation since September and has also seen action at several events held at Mother’s Brewing Co. Hoerman said one of the challenges to operating a food trailer is getting people to stop and try something new.
“People can be pretty set in their routines. They can just go to Hardee’s and McDonald’s,” he said. “For advertising, we’ll sometimes take food to area businesses and hand out fliers.”
Hoerman said the brat hut is more of a promotional tool for the meat shop than its own business entity.
John Palazzolo, owner of Rocco’s Pizza in Nixa, began operating a pizza trailer in 2009. Palazzolo pulled the plug on the trailer in May this year, but he plans to relaunch the mobile pizza parlor next year.
After buying the concession trailer, Palazzolo added two ovens, a press table, a dough sheeter, an exhaust fan and plumbing lines, and he topped it off with a custom paint job. He said the idea that makes food trailers popular is the lower operating costs.
“The overhead just to get a building put together, fully equipped, is huge,” Palazzolo said. “You can spend the money on a one-time deal on a concession trailer for a fraction of the expenses. In theory, you can make 50 percent to 60 percent of what you would make in a permanent store.”[[In-content Ad]]
