Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I am a 25 year old wife and mother of three. My husband is the only one working in our family. I have always dreamed of either being a nurse, or owning my own business. I have been testing the waters with the cooking business by catering lunches for construction workers at my husbands work, and they love it. Is that enough to know that I could make a real resturaunt work or am I just being hopeful.

Catering is different than owning a restaurant - what is unique about what you do that you could market it? I think a good mobile catering unit would be awesome - not the nasty roach coach, but a real mobile catering unit that serves good food! What a great concept.

At Cornell, we had this thing called the "Hot Truck" which served these awesome hot gooey french bread sub things. You can see a rare interview with the owner here. The hot truck only showed up late at night at the same location every night - and became a Cornell legend. (And with that many students, my guess is that they made a good living from it.)

I`d go with Nikole`s thoughts, and start with a truck. You`ll get all the FDA licensing, ordinances, and so forth figured out, without all the major expenses of leasing building space, utilities, and so forth.

In other words, if you want to sell what you cook, try to keep it as simple as possible at the beginning. You can always get more complicated as you succeed. Here in the Chicago area, lots of people like "gyros" (yee-rohss), a Greek sandwich food made of lamb.

Lots of places start as a small stand, like a hotdog stand. Other places start as a truck. If the owner understands business, can handle the licensing and health requirements, they sell more and more from that truck. In many instances, they then buy the lot where they have the truck and put up an actual restaurant.

Portillo`s did the same thing with hotdogs. It`s a way to develop a "phased" business plan, rather than facing the massive amount of detail involved in a physical, brick-and-mortar restaurant building.

You reminded me of the Grease Pits at Rutgers


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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

The nice thing about a truck is that you can`t get stuck in a bad location. If it isn`t working you move. Don`t need to tell you that a restaurant is very difficult to start. Sounds like you`ve found a great niche. Recommend that you build on what you already are doing. Along the way you`re learning the business end of things. Make sure you`re not giving the product away. Charge a fair price that is profitable. If your quality is better than the competition it`s worth charging more.

By the way... my wife was a nurse. You can do a lot better catering.

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