Module 1: Menu Planning and Inventory

If you’re thinking about starting a food truck, the best place to begin is to plan a menu.  Your menu will inform every other decision you make, from the design of your truck, to the types of events you want to target, to your staffing needs. There really is no better place to start.  If you already have a restaurant I recommend choosing a menu that consists of a more focused selection of what you already offer in your brick-and-mortar.  If you do not have a restaurant you are free to choose any menu you’d like, but you should most likely still stick to a limited number of options so you can serve as efficiently as possible.  

Having said that, it’s entirely possible to come up with an innovative, successful concept that offers a more broad menu with options that take longer to prepare.  Just keep in mind that the longer it takes you to serve customers the larger your average ticket size should be.  If you can serve 50 people in an hour with an average ticket size of $12 you’re bringing in the same amount of revenue as if you only serve 20 people in an hour with an average ticket size of $30.  Other major factors that effect your success are food cost, labor cost, and food waste.  We dig into these in other courses, but for now all you need to know is that those factors are why I favor a hyper focused menu that is optimized for efficient service.