If you are thinking about starting a burger van or a hot dog stand just take time to consider the pros and cons of the business model compared to the alternatives. Of course we come from a mobile catering van background and we are asked all the time what our thoughts are with regards to owning and running a burger van.
To be really honest we don’t have first hand knowledge of this but we do know many other operators in this market who tell us that all isn’t rosey in the burger van garden. One of the advantages and success factors in owning and running a mobile catering van business is that you can move it to wherever you want. When you have a burger van or a hot dog van you are static and you have to hook it up to another van to get it to wherever your pitch is.
The beauty of owning a catering van business is that you can operate during normal working hours and move it around to try out new businesses and locations on a whim (not that we’d ever suggest that you do this on a whim, planning is everything. Burger vans are now becoming harder and harder to site, particularly in profitable locations. All of the operators that we know work together with the larger food service companies like Compass Catering or Sodexo, leaving the secondary and tertiary locations to the rest of the crowd.
These secondary locations are very difficult to secure and many local councils are very wary of new pitches especially in the static markets due to the poor stigma that has historically been associated with the food quality. That being said, in our experience we haven’t experienced any static operator that has anything but first class quality.
To become a preferred supplier to one of the larger food service companies is very difficult so the prime locations are almost all tied up, leaving the business parks, car boot sales, antiques fairs and carriageway lay byes free.
In our opinion if you are considering starting a burger van business, think twice and make life just that little bit easier…why not think about a catering van business, make life easier.
The Proper Catering Academy runs a Catering Van Training course on a weekly basis, for more details click on the link below and read through the course itinerary and the package.
