If you wanted to run your own business but start small and relatively low risk, would this tried and tested method be worth the effort?

I need a change and I can see myself with a van or a trailer with a huge pot of homemade chilli or curry or something. The usual dirty burger vans have died out around here but there’s been a resurgence of stalls and vans selling good quality, diverse food at markets and events.

I have no aspirations to become a burger millionaire, or sell rock bottom quality crap for maximum profit. Just wondering if there’s a living wage in it if you’re willing to graft. As always, I’m interested in peoples personal experience or humorous anecdotes.

Friends of mine recently (last year) started running a catering (crepes, soups, cake, drinks) van in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh. They are only open 2/3 days per week and it is very much a second job while they see how well it will run. While they are enjoying it, it is tying down their weekends. They hope it will be successful enough to become full-time. It is long hours, lots of food prep, lots of off hygiene rules/red tape. You’ve got to think about towing the van and that your busiest period will likely be in the best weather.

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Know a couple of people. One guy did it in the city next to a train station. He gave it up. He said the council did almost everything in their power to make it as difficult as possible.

Other guy is set up at a trail centre and offers mechanical support too. He seems to be doing really well.

A friend of mine & his father run a pizza business at Santa Pod raceway and for 2 years I worked wkends with them to save some much needed cash for my wedding.

From what I experienced here’s a few pointers

The good quality products do not make much profit.He sourced his doughs from a local italian bakery etc which really cut into his profit. Would we have sold just as many if we went for low grade cardboard rubbish? Hmm I reckon we just might have

It is very hard & hot work with the best days for business being the hot sunny days when you wish you were the punter than the poor swine sweating next to a 250 degree oven.

Factor in most places require pitch costs for you to be there- need to sell a lot of pizzas for a 5 figure annual tender

Need to be able to bite your tongue when you get drunken morons giving you abuse or decide to p*ss up the side of your trailer when facilities are 20 yrds away

They have done it for 8 years or so & certainly not made enough to make it a reasonable living so both have full time jobs aswell as this. Everytime they seem to be doing OK something crops up – new oven, new trailer roof etc

Oh sweet memories

Workmate and her sister ran one

They reckoned that all the events/food markets wanted so much money off them that it wasn’t worth doing, and the Friday/Saturday night roadside burger van type work was hounded with red tape but profitable

They then found a patch of private land near a car park and railway station and made a mint doing weekday mornings.

I recon regular decent money would be in a mid-week position on a light industrial unit.

There’s a van near one of our offices – he opens early and caters for all the lorry drivers doing early deliveries , then busy doing bacon rolls etc. for the office workers, before being really busy with lunch-time trade. Then shut up shop at about 2. Sells decent food, so gets a lot of regulars and recommendations.

Must have been doing ok as he regularly disappeared for a week on foreign holiday!

Guess getting a decent pitch would be one of the hardest thing, and then having the on-going worry of someone else turning up in direct competition.

Ran the kitchen of a Burrito wagon for 3 years going round the big & small festivals.
Owner started small one custom built trailer & marquee kitchen, all hand made fresh each day, is now pretty big 3 or 4 wagons last time I spoke and a few marquees makes a very good living.
Expect to work at least 18 hours a day for 5 days plus travel for big festivals, you’ll have very little social life outside of festivals (the partying is ace, traders party harder than the punters 😉 )
Pitch fees are massive at some places and even getting on the list can take years.
At 38 now I think I may have trouble keeping up with a full season of a day or two at home at a time.

On the other side of the coin a family member has a van that tours campsites and other layby pitches etc on North coast of Devon, fresh fish & other fresh dishes fantastic stuff check out Seadog if in Woolacombe or surrounding area.

Do it, and please sell something other than bloody burgers. Also park up in a layby on a busy long distance road, and get on social media – people will be queueing up to avoid having to eat motorway service station food.

Although you might also need to sell burgers.

Pitch fees are massive at some places and even getting on the list can take years.

Set up our van outside the event and use drones to deliver better quality and cheaper food to the events goers.

The food at food at shows and events is generally pretty horrendously priced and often pretty grim.

Sounds like it could be a bit of an adventure to be honest! Not scared of hard work (or failure). I just really need something to put all my time and energy into without getting stuck in another bloody office.

I’ve already got a powerful van with a tow bar so I’d be looking at a trailer of some kind. I’ve also got somewhere to keep it so there’s two big issues already sorted.

Don’t have much interest in burgers or bacon sarnies. Very intrigued by curry, chilli, burritos or sweet potato chips or something.

Check the tow weight of your van also your license. If you passed after Jan 1st 1997 and haven’t done your trailer test then you will probably have to do one. Easily done but something to sort out and get on with before you can buy a trailer to get going.

My mate has a bacon butty /cup of tea type van .It`s on private land with a leccy supply .He has been there for years and seems to make a good living .Doesn’t use crap bacon /sausages or burgers and uses real crusty bread

You may not be into bacon butties etc ,but isn’t that what most people want rather than poncy artisan hippy food ?

Not anyone I know, but a campsite I frequent has a couple visit every Friday & Saturday night in season with Pizza van. They make it a family occasion with all the toppings laid out like Subway sandwiches do. The kids especially love to ‘create’ their own pizza, then it gets popped into a proper pizza oven. Has become a real selling point for the campsite!

Sounds all very twee .I just want a bacon roll and a cup of tea ,but them i`m working class scum !

I’ve been in the hospitality business my whole career and whilst I never operated a van I was responsible for commissioning them for a number of large sports events – Grand National, 6 Nations, Int Footie etc.

A lot of paperwork for Hygiene Reg’s these days and you will pay a premium for a pitch at large events. You can make money and it can be fun, my advice is keep it simple easy menu options and clean, why not go work at one of the up coming festivals and see how you get on before deciding to splash your own cash. You’ll quickly work it out, and remember you are selling to your customers, few of them will give a monkey’s for what you like or think is important 90% of the time. and +1 for long hours.

Good luck!

I’m not business man but it seems like you may be looking at from your point of view rather than the markets. You may want to do high quality “street food” but is there a market for that where you are, or events where there would be a market? Maybe the market for tea, soup and roll, burger van e.t.c. in your area is less well served and bigger than the high end? All depends on what and where the need is. Maybe the market is strong for the high end, I don’t know but worth thinking about.

I reckon its all about the food.

Cheeseburgers and a polystyrene cup of tea – you’ll be quiet.

Van near work does the usual fare plus stuff like breaded chicken/salad/sweet chilli baguettes, decent food and the bread comes from a local bakery. (I don’t think its particularly special, just good qaulity and fresh) All cooked to order and she always has a queue.

Then there is the rickety trailer on bricks outside work thats changed hands several times, never seems to open and was recently hand painted hippy style. Avoid like the plague 🙂

I reckon an organised van with daily specials that you’ve cooked the previous evening, pulled pork/roast chicken specials, hearty soup, chilli jackets etc will get the punters in. Ready to serve stuff like that has got to be a winner rather than trying to keep up cooking everything on a hotplate.

And you don’t necessarily need a trailer, a low floor Ducato type van seems the favoured vehicle for the more professional types.

Prices will all be similar at festivals between say a burger & chips, a curry with rice, burrito etc.
Margin on a grim burger will be greater than a hand made meal in terms of labour not necessarily ingredients.
There’s are fairly broad range of food available at most festivals now too if anyone hasn’t been to one for a while, after 2 days of fried food people will want/need a decent meal.

Re. vehicles, for a few days at an event you’ll need storage as well as a work area hence the trailer and van, we ran LWB double axle sprinters or 7.5 ton box vans with a double axle trailer which had fridges, water systems, ovens and serving area. 40K for the first trailer custom build probably more like 60 now.

yep, built ran and ultimately sold our very popular street food truck, we avoided street food markets and such in favour of doing “pop up dinners” in local villages that had lost their pubs etc. Some evenings we’d feed between 60-80 people!!

I say sold it, that was because we now do this: http://www.theexmoorbeastro.com

A friend of mine had a ‘gourmet’ burger van, but met with a lot of hassle trying to sell on the street. He’s now selling the van and moving into a premises due to this.

Story Here

MrNutt – Your place looks fabulous. My kinda food. 🙂

Chap i knew set one up many years ago, selling chips and fried food, got moved on so many times by Police, final time he forgot to turn off the fryer, fat spashed around and burnt the van to the ground.

Remember youll need a food hygene certificate for all staff, public liability,and trade insurance for the vehicle, youre not allowed to street trade on the highway without a licence and theyre not given out easily.

Contact local council, highways agency for a roads and environmnetal health, and wait to be deluged in forms and rules.

We have a few clients doing mobile catering. Very competitive and not many survive financially.

I know a guy who took his redundancy from work, bought a newsagent on a council estate, near a secondary school. Makes a fortune selling buckfast to the jaikies, fags and hot filled rolls to the passing trades, but most of all – chips to school kids.

**** that.

Not operated one but booked & dealt with lots for events. Depending on your local authority you’ll need –

FH rating – most insist on at least a 3 if trading on their land
NICEIC certs for the electrics in the vehicle
Gas certs if used
Public Liability insurance plus all relevant insurance
Kitted out trailer with relevant hand wash & hygiene facilities

Event pitches vary – flat fee, fee & percentage, fee plus percentages based on takings

As mentioned above certain events have long waiting lists & fierce competition for pitches. Some events want burger & chips, others want more craft or finer dining. Caterers with character stand a better chance of being selected ie locally sourced, organic etc

So assuming that any small business has lots of red tape, hidden costs, long hours, potential for disaster etc… This doesn’t stand out as a particularly unrealistic option. Probably pretty good for a first timer.

It might even be fun. Food is more interesting than white goods or carpet tiles or something.

A Pizza Van in a “New Town” moving to a new estate every night in rotation.

Purely based on one I saw in france that made a mint visiting a different village each night and Delivery Demand for pizza in a new town.

cbmotorsport – Member

A friend of mine had a ‘gourmet’ burger van, but met with a lot of hassle trying to sell on the street. He’s now selling the van and moving into a premises due to this.

Story Here

It’s very discouraging when you try to earn a living without relying for hand-outs only for the local council ZMs to prevent you doing so. It pisses me off when hard working people are prevented from making a simple living. Those ZMs should be line up then be probed with police truncheon up their arses.

These ZMs should be voted out. Keep them in place they will be so parasitic you have no choice but to beg for hand outs if you are a small business. Some may survive but many will just perish due to the actions of these ZMs.

The way the ZMs is preventing small business from starting is so hypocritical that only large organisation with huge capital that can start a business … yet, they say they support small business. What a load of shite.

I intend to start a small business but every time I research into the rules I have to take two steps back and try again …

No wonder this nation is screwed as the ZMs rules are killing any potential start-ups.

When we had the truck we were based in N.Devon, there was no charge to operate a mobile food business and the council were very positive about us running “pop up dinners” and even suggested some fantastic coastal sites, also the National Park Authority were very supportive and we catered a few of their excellent events. West Somerset council on the other hand wanted almost £1000 per year for a licence (which apparently only went towards funding the licensing scheme!) and were very restrictive when it came to sites.

The highways authority only have a concern if you can be considered to be a potential obstruction, this can apply to people passing and slowing/stopping. As long as you are sensible with your pitch and consult the relevant authorities before pitching up you shouldn’t have any problems with the authorities.

As I tell everyone that considers cooking for a living, expect to work bloody hard, long hot hours on your feet, whilst all your friends and family are enjoying themselves. Its not a holiday or an easy job, but it does have its own rewards.

Oh and if you’re anywhere near a newsagent you can find us in the June edition of the excellent Food & Travel Magazine!! (on sale now)

I reckon its all about the food.

Cheeseburgers and a polystyrene cup of tea – you’ll be quiet.
Don’t agree, it’s about location and the right food for that location.
There’s a greasy spoon white van parked next to a McD’s beside a DIY store I pass most weekends. always people there, so thinking it must be good I tried it. Nope, typical greasy burger and weak tea and those big plastic squeezies of cheap mustard etc. But always busy.
On the other hand, there’s a nice walk on a National trust bit of ground and there’s been a van in the car park the last few times I’ve been there. Again, always busy. They do various teas and coffees (a decent espresso) and really, really nice artisan breadsticks. Fairly expensive, but catering to the kind of people who will travel to do walks on National Trust grounds.
Not been involved in this myself, I’d have thought the former would be easier to set up, run and find a place to trade form, the latter harder work, more expensive to run, harder to get the right place but probably more rewarding to run.
Also, the former is year round, the latter is dead in winter

From cbmotorsports’s link.

A Herts Highways spokesman said: “We were consulted by North Herts District Council as the highways authority, and commented that the location of site could obstruct pedestrians, and is not appropriate on a busy B-road.

“We can only advise in respect as a highways authority.”

NHDC said Mr Darlow was missing a licence, which was then applied for retrospectively.

Andy Godman, NHDC’s head of housing and public protection, said: “When considering Mr Darlow’s application for a street trading licence, we received objections from both Hertfordshire Highways and the police who had road safety concerns regarding the location of the business.
Councils and the police don’t try to stifle business, it’s in no=-one’s interest to do that, but those businesses need to be aware that there are other people in the world, and the world doesn’t stop turning to accommodate their desire to be the Alan Sugar of the burger world. This sort of thing should be sorted before you start trading (like the licence the guy didn’t bother applying for), not afterward so you can come across all UKIP to the local press relying on support from uninformed dimwits like chewkie.
But there’s a lesson there and again, it’s about location

Alan Sugar of the burger world.

*Clears throat*

Hamstrad?

*Leaves quietly*

Bapprentice?

when i was in SA they do these things like a crisps its like a potato in a big spiral on a wooden skewer that they deep fry, then they shake on seasoning, i found the contraption on ebay once, can’t remember what they are called though?

Always thought it was quite unique, simple and would do well here.

Where I worked in Oxford there was a battle between two trailers that wanted to monopolize the estate. It got very nasty, a good pitch is worth defending with violence apparently.

There was a Kebab van in Grove and they seemed to do cracking business.

Location location location

I’ve got one. I installed 400Watts of solar panels on it, a solar charge controller, 2 massive leisure batteries and a 5kw invertor.
Most of the appliances ran on LPG (including the espresso machine boiler) so on a sunny weekend it could run both days without a generator. It power the espresso machine electronics, 3 fridges, an ice cream scoop fridge, lighting and extraction.
Some nice people stripped it out one night of all the solar power stuff.
You’ll need somewhere secure to store it, be wary about buying an all metal one, condensation in Winter can be a problem.
Don’t buy a Hyundai generator, I spent £1k on a dual fuel one that could run off the trailer’s LPG bottles, it’s been in for repair most of it’s life.
Mark up on scoop ice cream is good.

those potatoes on a spiral are called “tornado potatoes” we used to do them and they are very popular!

We’ve just been featured in Food & Travel Magazine this month, it mentions our Street Food roots, click on the button on the front page of our site 🙂 http://www.theexmoorbeastro.com some lovely photography too (apologies for the photo of me and the missis in advance!)