Las Vegas, NV: Trucks of the Trade

By CAITLIN MCGARRY | Las Vegas Business Press

Juan Gutierrez, left, and Eduardo Gomez on Feb. 11 check out the menu on the Roamin' Dough food truck during the Saturday night truck stop event outside Tommy Rocker's Mojave Beach Bar & Grill in Las Vegas. The event is a weekly meetup of specialty food trucks outside Tommy Rocker's organized by Sloppi Jo's food truck owner Jo Mannina. BILL HUGHES | LAS VEGAS BUSINESS PRESS

John Ynigues in 2009 was laid off from his job as a technology manager and joined the ranks of the unemployed.

He spent the next year applying for information technology positions, but interviews began to dwindle to none and, like many Las Vegas residents, Ynigues realized his joblessness was becoming a long-term prospect.

So he decided to become his own boss.

While job-hunting, Ynigues realized his affinity for a strong cup of java and began visiting local, independent coffee shops like Sunrise Coffee to learn more about the art and science behind a high-quality cappuccino.

At the same time, food trucks began popping up around town, led by the comic strip-emblazoned Slidin’ Thru mini-burger truck. Ynigues realized he needed to get his feet wet before opening his own coffee shop, so he bought and renovated an old snow-cone trailer for $16,000 and took to the streets with Grouchy John’s Coffee.

Ynigues and business partner J.J. Wylie went mobile about a year ago. In the next few weeks, they plan to open a brick-and-mortar location at 8520 S. Maryland Parkway.

“I don’t understand anyone who has a brick-and-mortar that doesn’t want to move into mobile or anyone in mobile who doesn’t want to move into brick-and-mortar,” Ynigues said. “The mobile gets your name out there so much.”

FINDING A HOME

Ynigues is not the first food truck owner to transition into a storefront. A handful of the 125 permitted food trucks in the city have joined the ranks of brick-and-mortar business owners.

Slidin’ Thru served up sliders at a temporary location near the airport before opening a restaurant at 6410 N. Durango Drive in December. One of the first Las Vegas food trucks, Fukuburger, partnered with investor and restaurateur Harry Morton to open a location in Los Angeles last September. Sloppi Jo’s owner Jolene Mannina sold her truck and is scouting storefronts downtown to open a restaurant later this year.

Slidin’ Thru owner Ric Guerrero has learned a few lessons since ushering in Las Vegas’ gourmet food truck phenomenon in March 2010. Guerrero said he was so focused on opening his Centennial Hills restaurant late last year that he almost forgot how Slidin’ Thru got started.

“When we first opened, we were on this high of a new restaurant. We were going to serve as the template for franchising one day. We were going to open 1,000 of these over the next few years — world domination,” Guerrero said.

Now that he knows what owning a restaurant is really like, his mindset is slightly different.

“Now we’re like, ‘What were we thinking?’ The truck is what made us successful,” Guerrero said. “We’re moving from food truck to restaurant, but all of the principles are the same. We’re taking our business back to humble beginnings again.”

That means focusing on the truck, the Slidin’ Thru location on North Durango Drive and the upcoming location on the south side of town opening this spring.

“We still have extremely huge goals and aspirations for this business, we’re just taking it one step at a time now,” Guerrero said. “Instead of trying to open 1,000 restaurants by the next year, we’re just going to make this one as successful as it can be. We’re getting a realistic handle on what it takes to run a restaurant.”

Fukuburger owner Colin Fukanaga worked for P.F. Chang’s China Bistro for more than a decade before deciding to open his own restaurant in 2008.

He put together a business plan, found investors and wrote a letter of intent for a piece of real estate.

“Then the economy imploded,” Fukanaga said. “The investors retracted and said it wasn’t a good time. It was pretty devastating at the time.”

Fukanaga’s parents lived in L.A. and told him about a Korean barbecue food truck, Kogi, that was changing food culture in Southern California.

On July 4, 2010, Fukanaga launched Fukuburger, which combines the American classic with Japanese ingredients like wasabi and pickled ginger.

With the help of social media and exposure from events like the Vegas StrEATs monthly food festival downtown, Fukanaga soon appeared on the radar of Harry Morton, who owns the Pink Taco restaurant chain.

Morton offered to fund an L.A. outpost of Fukuburger if Fukanaga was interested, but he had to act fast. Fukanaga jumped at the chance to realize his dream of opening a restaurant.

He was concerned that his friends in Las Vegas would be offended if he left town to open his first restaurant, but he decided to take the opportunity anyway.

“I think Las Vegas should be proud that something that started here (is branching out), because Vegas is the epicenter of the foodie culture in the States,” Fukanaga said.

Fukuburger continues to cater parties and appear at events in town, and Fukanaga soon plans to open an unrelated restaurant with an as-yet-unnamed partner.

TRIAL AND ERROR

Before Slidin’ Thru and Fukuburger became established restaurants with rabid followings, Guerrero and Fukanaga were just a couple of chefs trying to figure out how to run a business on wheels.

There were licensing issues, health- code gaffes and vehicle breakdowns in the middle of rush hour traffic — all of which are par for the course for a food truck.

Guerrero can laugh about it now, but when his truck died on U.S. Highway 95 and had to be escorted to the shoulder of the road by police, it was more frustrating than funny. The truck has broken down multiple times, and even had its lights die in the middle of serving food. Customers pulled their vehicles around and pointed their high beams into the windows of Guerrero’s truck so his team could finish cooking.

A food truck’s startup costs are low compared with those of a new restaurant, but buying a new truck can run upward of $20,000, plus an additional $20,000 for licenses, permits and fees. Then there are the inevitable repairs.

“I splurged to get the nicest, newest truck, and that doesn’t necessarily translate into less problems,” Fukanaga said. “I always tell everybody a restaurant was never meant to be on four wheels. It’s a flatbed and you’re introducing commercial kitchen equipment, grease, propane, heat. It’s not meant to work like that.”

Fukanaga spent $5,000 to replace his new engine five months into operating Fukuburger.

Food truck owners agree that finding a place to park and attract a high volume of customers can be tough, because Las Vegas is not a pedestrian city with walkable districts.

Mannina served up New Mexican cuisine at Sloppi Jo’s for a year before selling her truck to focus on opening a restaurant. During that year, she said she learned the best places to park and the best events to participate in.

“It’s hard, because Vegas is suburbs and people have to come out and see if they can find you,” Mannina said.

Mannina also struggled to do everything on her own, from social networking and accounting to shopping and chopping ingredients.

“I think most people are caught off guard by the amount (of work) going into operating this business: health permit, business license,” said Jonathan Dalton, an environmental health specialist with the Southern Nevada Health District. “In most jurisdictions they need a sheriff’s card and a background check. They are operating a full restaurant in there.”

Food trucks also have to find places to park and dispose of waste when they’re not operational. There are a few commissaries around town, or if the trucks operate out of a commercial kitchen, they can dump oil and restock food there.

Another problem the health district saw when the trucks first got started was food temperature, Dalton said. Food on a truck can easily get too warm, especially when refrigerators are struggling against Las Vegas’ summertime heat.

But the established trucks have helped the newer trucks learn the ropes, which cuts back on bureaucratic issues.

“There were a few pioneer trucks that paved the way,” Dalton said. “It seems there’s a bit of a culture in the mobile vending community. Word spreads.”

COMMUNITY COLLABORATIONS

Guerrero and Fukanaga have served as de facto mentors for food truck operators just starting out. The two offer tips on places to park, which mechanics know how to work on food trucks, how to navigate the maze of licenses and permits, and now the upsides and pitfalls of restaurant ownership.

Mannina credits Fukuburger for helping launch her truck by collaborating for a party when Sloppi Jo’s was getting off the ground.

Ynigues said Slidin’ Thru has been his inspiration. Grouchy John’s often partners with other trucks for lunch or dinner — it attracts more people to both trucks, Ynigues said.

“(Slidin’ Thru) has a big draw, and some of those people we can siphon off and they can try some of our drinks. It’s a symbiotic relationship,” Ynigues said.

Slidin’ Thru, Fukuburger and the other trucks, with offerings ranging from cupcakes to wings, often team up to cater parties or put on festivals.

Guerrero last spring introduced the monthly Vegas StrEATs, which draws hundreds of young partiers to the El Cortez’s Jackie Gaughan Plaza for food, beverages and bands. Mannina hosts Saturday Night Truck Stop weekly at Tommy Rocker’s, which draws the hospitality crowd for the event’s Back of House Brawl — a version of “Chopped” for Las Vegas chefs.

“I started the Truck Stop specifically for myself, pretty much,” Mannina said. “I wanted a place I could go every Saturday night and be located near a bar, something catered to the service industry.”

The Truck Stop really gets going after midnight, when chefs get off work.

The events create community for the trucks, but also for customers, who have a reason to turn up and sample food during one entertainment-filled evening.

“We’ve found that it’s actually more beneficial for everybody when we group together. We create more of a reason for people to come out and create more of a scene, an atmosphere, an event,” Guerrero said. “We created our own little community amongst the food truck operators. We help each other out, share contacts, share locations. This business is unlike anything else, that’s for sure.”

http://www.lvbusinesspress.com/articles/2012/02/20/news/iq_51158493.txt

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Posted by MobileFoodNews.com on Feb 20 2012. Filed under Business Operations, Las Vegas, Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry