Welcome to The Hotdogman's Network Forum

[Rob Merlino]

Feel free to ask questions of your fellow vendors!

[Bill]

Hello,

I am looking to start a hot dog truck and had a few questions:

1) Is there any sort of service or process that I should go through when looking at a used truck?
Ideally I would want to get everything running it and let it run for at least an hour to make sure things are working correctly and reliably. Is this normal? I have bought used cars before, but there is a lot more to this than a car.

2) If you have a fryer in your truck, how do you store it to drive around without it going everywhere? I would imagine there has to be a way to seal the fryer or something each day, right?

3) Is there any sort of formula or percentage of cars / hour that you can reasonably expect to stop in? I know in marketing aspects, I have heard 3% is a good response to an advertising campaign. Is there anything like this that I can use to try to judge if a location is going to be profitable?

I'll start with those few items.
Any feedback would be great.
Thanks.

[Rob Merlino]

Hi Bill and WELCOME!

1. Get a mechanic you trust to look things over. It's good to know if the truck is currently in service and has all the proper permits. KICK THE TIRES! You want to make sure the kitchen works. Light all the burners, turn on both the hot and cold water, check the electrics by turning everything on etc.

2. I NEVER used the fryers in either of the two trucks I owned, so I'm not much of an authority here. It's too damn messy. Fries are a good money maker, but I never could deal with the mess.

3. Initially, when you first start out, the more cars going by the better. A lot of parking will get "the diesel crowd" eating at your truck since they can't pull a big rig in just anywhere. More important than the amount of cars passing by is how many will stop. I never applied any marketing formulas to the numbers of customers that stopped. The important thing is to have the ones that DO stop come back again and tell their friends. Go around to all the nearby businesses and offer an introductory meal deal or even a free hot dog. Even in the internet age, good old word of mouth is still the best advertising. Check out http://www.howtostartahotdogbusiness.com/2009/03/location-location-...

Bill said:

Hello,
I am looking to start a hot dog truck and had a few questions:
1) Is there any sort of service or process that I should go through when looking at a used truck?
Ideally I would want to get everything running it and let it run for at least an hour to make sure things are working correctly and reliably. Is this normal? I have bought used cars before, but there is a lot more to this than a car.

2) If you have a fryer in your truck, how do you store it to drive around without it going everywhere? I would imagine there has to be a way to seal the fryer or something each day, right?

3) Is there any sort of formula or percentage of cars / hour that you can reasonably expect to stop in? I know in marketing aspects, I have heard 3% is a good response to an advertising campaign. Is there anything like this that I can use to try to judge if a location is going to be profitable?

I'll start with those few items.
Any feedback would be great.
Thanks.

[Tom]

Hi everyone. I have just built a hot dog truck. Question to ask...how do you steam hot dog Rolls on a steam table so they will last for hours...mine lasted about 20 minutes before turning to mush!! Also does anyone put cheese on there dogs??? How do you keep that hot ??


just beginning,

Thanks
Tom

[Rob Merlino]

Hey Tom-

A steam table is too much steam for little ole buns. If you want to steam the buns, chuck them in there for a minute before you serve them up. There are also special buns steamers that don't crank up the heat (or steam) as much as the "main" steam table. I prefer grilled buns myself......

As for the cheese-there are steam table inserts for cheese warmers-check Bigtray.com for ideas.

Tom said:

Hi everyone. I have just built a hot dog truck. Question to ask...how do you steam hot dog Rolls on a steam table so they will last for hours...mine lasted about 20 minutes before turning to mush!! Also does anyone put cheese on there dogs??? How do you keep that hot ??
just beginning,

Thanks
Tom