Lunch Truck Business Ideas

If you want to start your own restaurant, a food truck is a reasonable first step, with the main reason being that it lets you test the waters without the big startup costs associated with a brick-and-mortar restaurant. You also won’t have to come up with a very extensive menu, which won’t just keep costs down but will also keep things simple for you and your staff.

As you may have noticed, many food trucks focus on a particular cuisine, or a specific dish. You don’t have to do that if you feel that’s too limiting. Instead, you can opt for a lunch truck or mobile canteen truck.

Why a Lunch Truck?

Have you ever passed by a breakfast food truck, with its offerings of coffee or hot cocoa, waffles, bacon, and eggs? A lunch truck, as you can see in the name, follows the same concept, focusing on a particular meal or time of day. This helps you narrow down your choices for the menu while also giving you more freedom than you would have if, say, you chose to run a Chinese food truck instead.

More importantly, you have a decent time frame to serve customers, without the early-morning rush that comes with a breakfast food truck. Since people could grab lunch as early as 11AM, all the way to, perhaps, around 3PM, depending on what time they get a long enough break, you have a decent window of time to serve people.

Lunch Truck Business and Menu Ideas

As mentioned earlier, you have more choices for your menu than if you focused only on a certain cuisine. With a Mexican, Indian, or Chinese food truck, you’d have to limit yourself to those dishes. With a lunch food truck, you can have as many cuisines as you’d like, as long as the dishes could, conceivably, be eaten for lunch.

That means, of course, that you’ll have to provide a decent number of choices to cater to every possible customer. Fortunately, there are sure crowd-pleasers.
  • Sandwiches
  • Burgers and sliders
  • Hotdogs
  • Wraps
  • Tacos (which are a kind of wrap themselves)
  • Pasta
  • Rice meals

You could also offer appetizers or side dishes on top of your mains, for customers who want something a little more substantial. If you start noticing that you have customers who dine in groups, you may want to offer bigger servings of your chosen side dishes, too. Whether you offer only solo portions or have both solo and sharing platters, some appetizers and side dishes to consider include:
  • Salads
  • Onion rings
  • Cheese sticks
  • Fries
  • Potato wedges

Finally, there’s the option to offer dessert, though this may stretch the storage capacity of your food truck. If you do decide to include dessert in your menu, consider small items so you don’t run out of space.
  • Small bowls of fruit salad
  • Brownies
  • Cookies
  • Mini cakes or pies
  • Tartlets

As you can see, there’s actually a lot to choose from when it comes to a lunch truck menu, so your customers will hardly get bored with the options. Before you start actively planning and building, though, try looking for a customized lunch truck for sale on our website FoodTruckForSale.com. With this, you’ll know how much space you have to work with and if there’s anything you won’t be able to make because you won’t have the equipment for it.

You may also check out other food truck niches here. If you have questions, feel free to contact us at 601-651-3008 or send us a message for expert assistance.