Photo: PRWeb

Due to significant demand, Prestige Food Trucks of Orlando, Florida has recently expanded its operations to include small to large restaurant chains/franchises.

“Over the past two years, many small to large restaurant chains/franchises have shown significant interest in taking their brand/restaurant to the food truck industry,” stated Tracy Stein-CEO/President for Prime Pinnacle.

Mr. Stein further states the rise in popularity is because restaurant chains/franchises have begun to see the big picture in getting into the food truck business by studying, researching, and recognizing the following opportunities:

•     Franchises can extend their brand recognition immediately and exponentially while earning loyalty from their new customers early on
•     New locations for future Brick-And-Mortar Restaurants can be scouted out to gain important data on location and demographics for additional franchisee value and security
•     Mobile/Roaming Billboard for Advertising/Promotions/Marketing
•     Testing and data gathering on new menu items and concepts for mass-production
•     Additional Profit Center

Prime Pinnacle’s research/data have shown that over 15% of the Top 200 restaurant chains have a mobile café / food truck presence. That’s a tremendously strong statement as to the value of a mobile brand extension. The trend is increasing daily as many well-known chains and franchises have already jumped into the game. These include Cousins Submarines, Inc; Tasti D-Lite Frozen Yogart; Toppers Pizza; Jack in The Box; Sizzler; Red Robin; Chick-fil-A, Star Diner;The Gap; The Habit Burger & Grill; Taco Bell; Applebee’s; Dairy Queen, Subway, Qdoba, California Pizza Kitchen, Carl’s Jr.; In-N-Out Burger, Fatburger; Grandolfo’s New York Delicatessen; Banna-Stow’s Crepes & Coffee; and more.

The restaurant industry is highly competitive and establishing and maintaining brand loyalty and recognition early is key.

The chain restaurants/franchises are aware that the cost to buy/build a food truck pales in comparison compared to opening a brick-and-mortar store, with much higher profit margins. Stein stated, “Food trucks serve as mobile billboards as well which is very enticing to the franchise/chain owners as they can spend between $50,000 – $200,000 + per month on advertising alone. With a mobile food truck their visibility increases exponentially.”

And one food truck manufacturer has begun to see the feasting begin to gain market share. “The food truck industry is here to stay and will be growing by leaps and bounds in order to keep up and meet consumer demand. With that more evident now than ever, small to large chain restaurants/franchises are jumping on board and moving their brands out into main stream and rural America,” Says Mr. Stein. “It’s an exciting thing to watch.”

Prestige Food Trucks builds, sells, buys, repairs, rehabs, finances, leases and rents premium quality food trucks/mobile cafes & trailers to a wide range of clientele from sole-proprietors to nationwide chains. Their commitment is to offer complete turnkey development to their customers, from building to branding to getting on the street.

More information about Prestige Food Trucks is available online at http://www.prestigefoodtrucks.com.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/prweb/article/Franchises-Restaurant-Chains-Experiment-with-4459951.php

The Trucks & Tech event at 6 p.m. on April 25 brings guest speakers and some of Orlando’s mobile eateries to the parking lot of the former Amway Arena for a night of tech talk and food. (Illustration by Walter Pacheco, Orlando Sentinel / July 26, 2012)

Food truck lovers and technology junkies unite at the Trucks & Tech event April 25 for an evening of guest speakers and tasty food from some of Orlando’s popular mobile eateries.

The event, which starts at 6 p.m. in the parking lot of the former Amway Arena in Orlando, is hosted by IZEA.

It includes presentations by Joe Tenczar, CIO of Hard Rock International; Jonathan Taylor, CEO of VOXEO; and Lewis Broadnax, executive director of Lenovo.com sales and marketing.

Larry Meador, CEO of Evok Advertising; Harold Timmis, head of technology at smARtMAKER,Todd Deery, admissions director at UCF’s Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy; and Ron Ben-Zeev, co-organizer of Orlando Startup Weekend Events, will also be speaking at the trucks and food event.

Participating food trucks: All Things Sweet, Melissa’s Chicken & Waffles, The Pastrami Project,Soup to Nuts, and The Crepe Company.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/technology/blog/os-orlando-trucks-and-tech,0,7601535.post?track=rss

TheDailyCity.com Food Truck Bazaar (About, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) is the nation’s first travelling food truck event, created right here in Central Florida on March 29, 2011 by Mark Baratelli and TheDailyCity.com. It’s the event that birthed the food truck scene in Orlando, a city which gets 50 million tourists per year. Every month it reaches 15,000 people and 15 towns! This is huge! In 2012 alone we did it 137 times! It’s family-friendly and dog-friendly. It’s gives communities a reason to gather together, a chance to try Orlando’s food truck scene and a way to get exposure to the food truck industry.

Here are the upcoming events for April and May:

Thursday April 18, 5:30-8:30pm, 400 N. Alexander St, Sit & Stay Pet Café, Cafe Cocoa Mo, Bem Bom, Twisted Cuban, Cafe Rouge, Fork in the Road, The Crepe Company, The Flattery, The Treehouse Truck, Melissa’s Chicken and Waffles, Monsta Lobsta, Korean BBQ Taco Box, Mayan Grill, Tastebuds, Over Rice Food Truck, Charlie’s Bakery, Ice Cream Social, Yum Yum Cupcake Truck

Sunday April 21, 5-8pm, Earl Brown Park, 751 S. Alabama Ave., Beard Pappa, Cafe Cocoa Mo, Cafe Rouge, Fork in the Road, The Crepe Company, Twisted Cuban, Melissa’s Chicken and Waffles, Saigon Sizzle, Mayan Grill, The Big Cheese, Up in Smoke, Monsta Lobsta, Uber Good, Wako Taco, Ice Cream Social, Yum Yum Cupcake Truck

Monday April 22 had to be canceled. The area of the park we normally set up at is under construction. The Chamber of Commerce is doing everything it can to find a new venue for May.

Wednesday April 24, 6-9pm, Timber Creek High School, 1001 Avalon Park Blvd, Beard Pappa, Bem Bom, Cafe Rouge, Fork in the Road, The Crepe Company, Melissa’s Chicken and Waffles, SwedeDish, La Empanada, Tastebuds, Carobama BBQ, Monsta Lobsta, The Big Cheese, Wako Taco, Sweet City Gelato, Yum Yum Cupcake

Thursday April 25, Gateway Center for the Arts, 880 U.S. 17 De Bary, FL 32713, Bem Bom, Cafe Rouge, Fork in the Road, Twisted Cuban, The Treehouse Truck, Saigon Sizzle, Up In Smoke BBQ, ClawDaddy’s, Mr Fed’s Fresh & Famous Food, Ice Cream Social, Yum Yum Cupcake Truck

Thursday April 25, Embry Riddle, 600 S Clyde Morris Blvd, Daytona Beach, “Walk With Me for Easter Seals” event. SEVEN TRUCKS WILL BE THERE: Bem Bom, The Crepe Company, The Flattery, Mayan Grill, Monsta Lobsta, The Big Cheese, Sweet City Gelato

Friday April 26, 5-8pm, Wickham Park, 2500 Parkway Dr., 5Gastronomy, Cafe Rouge, Fork in the Road, The Crepe Company, Curbside Chef, Dixieland Diner, Swede Dish, Mayan Grill, Up in Smoke BBQ, Melissa’s Chicken and Waffles, Monsta Lobsta, Mr Fed’s Fresh & Famous Food, Saigon Sizzle, Uber Good, Veggie Love, Wako Taco, Yum Yum Cupcake Truck

Saturday April 27, 1875 Silver Spurs Lane, Osceola Heritage Park, “Education in the Park,” Bem Bom, Cafe Rouge, Fork in the Road, The Crepe Company, Mayan Grill, Up In Smoke, Pastrami Project, The Big Cheese, Curbside Chef, Local Yolk’l, Treasure Island Treats, Veggie Love, Beard Pappa, Dimples Delights, Sweet City Gelato, Yum Yum Cupcake Truck, Cafe Cocoa Mo

Sunday April 28, 6-9pm, 3680 Avalon Park E Blvd, 5Gastronomy, Bem Bom, Fork in the Road, The Crepe Company, Twisted Cuban, The Flattery, The Treehouse Truck, Melissa’s Chicken and Waffles, Saigon Sizzle, Swede Dish, Mayan Grill, Tastebuds, C&S Brisket Bus, Up In Smoke BBQ, Monsta Lobsta, Curbside Chef, Fantastic Hummus, Local Yolk’l, Mr Fed’s Fresh & Famous Food, Over Rice Food Truck, Uber Good, Wako Taco, Beard Poppa, Charlie’s Bakery, Sweet City Gelato, Pop Craft, Yum Yum Cupcake Truck, Café Cocoa Mo

MAY 2 5:30-8:30 ROCKLEDGE 182-282 Barton Blvd
MAY 3 6-9pm KISSIMMEE 201 E. Dakin Ave
MAY 4 6-9pm SANFORD 201 E Seminole Blvd
MAY 5 6-9pm ORANGE CITY KMart plaza, 810 Saxon Blvd
MAY 9 5-8pm MINNEOLA Park & Ride lot, US Hwy 27
MAY 10 6-9pm CASSELBERRY 95 Triplet Lake Dr
MAY 16 5:30-8:30 MOUNT DORA 400 N. Alexander St
MAY 19 6-9pm ORLANDO Fashion Square Mall *25 Trucks*
MAY 19 5-8pm DELAND 751 S. Alabama Ave.
MAY 23 DEBARY *canceled and postponed to June 27*
MAY 24 5-8pm MELBOURNE Wickham Park 2500 Parkway Dr

http://www.thedailycity.com/2013/04/thedailycitycom-food-truck-bazaar.html

Maitland’s Food Truck Cafe is Wednesday, 6-9 p.m., around Lake Lily. (Stephen M. Dowell, Orlando Sentinel / October 4, 2011)

The Food Truck Bazaar Millenia: 5-8 p.m. Thursday, April 4; 4000 Millenia Blvd. (DeVry University), Orlando;thefoodtruckbazaar.com

The Food Truck Bazaar Kissimmee: 6-9 p.m. Friday, April 5; Kissimmee Civic Center, 201 E. Dakin Ave.; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

The Food Truck Bazaar Sanford: 6-9 p.m. Saturday, April 6; 201 E Seminole Blvd., Sanford; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

The Food Truck Bazaar Thornton Park: noon-4 p.m. Saturday, April 6; Howard Middle School, 800 E. Robinson St., Orlando; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

•REGULAR EVENTS

Trucking Tuesdays: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesdays; First United Methodist Church, 142 E. Jackson St., Orlando; 407-849-6080

Tasty Tuesdays: 6-10 p.m. Tuesdays; The Milk Bar, 2424 E. Robinson St., Orlando; 407-896-4954

Wild Wild Wednesdays: 5-9 p.m. Wednesdays; 4022 S. Conway Road, Orlando; 321-750-6820

Food Truck Cafe: 6-9 p.m. Wednesdays; Lake Lily Park, 840 Lake Lily Drive, Maitland; 407-539-6268

Apopka‘s Food Truck Round Up: 5:30-9 p.m. first Thursday of each month; Kit Land Nelson Park, 18 N. Forest Ave., Apopka

Mount Dora Brew & Chew: 5-10 p.m. Thursdays; Mount Dora Brewing’s Rocking Rabbit Brewery, 405 S. Highland St., Mount Dora; 407-340-1002

Edgewood Food Trucks: 5-8 p.m. Thursdays; 405 Larue Ave., Edgewood; edgewood-fl.gov

Food Truck Fridays: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Fridays; RDV Sportsplex, 8701 Maitland Summit Blvd., Orlando; 407-916-2442

Wall Street Block Party: 11 p.m.-3 a.m. Friday and Saturday; Wall Street Plaza (between Orange and Court Avenues), Orlando; foodtruckbreakout.com

Food on Wheels: 5-10 p.m. Saturdays; Tropical Ford, 9900 S. Orange Blossom Trail, Orlando; 407-936-4332

Leesburg Food Truck-n-Flick Nights: 5:30-9 p.m. second Saturday of the month; FoodTrucknFlick.LeesburgPartnership.com

Munchies Food Truck Sundays: 1-10 p.m. Sundays; 1737 N. Alafaya Trail, Orlando; 321-662-0738

•COMING SOON

The Food Truck Bazaar Orange City: 6-9 p.m. Sunday, April 7; Kmart Plaza, 810 Saxon Blvd., Orange City; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

The Food Truck Bazaar Mount Dora: 5:30-8:30 p.m. Thursday, April 18 and May 16; corner of Fourth and Alexander Streets, downtown Mount Dora; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

Trucks & Tech: 6 p.m. April 25; in the parking lot of the old Amway Arena in downtown Orlando, next to Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre; trucksandtech.com

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/restaurants/os-food-trucks-orlando-march31april6-20130331,0,1537994.story

Cypress Creek is hosting a Food Truck Round-Up every Wednesday Night. Those of you in the Ft. Lauderdale area which haven’t had a taste of the Miami Food Truck experience, you’re about to get it full on. Set aside Wednesday from 5PM – 9:30PM and come out and enjoy:

Every Wednesday

Click Here

The Details:

Cypress Creek Food Truck Round-Up
Date: Every Wednesday
Time: 5PM – 9:30PM
Location: 5201 NW 12th Ave, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309
Parking: Free Parking

Find out how to follow the food trucks – including the C&S Brisket Bus – at OrlandoSentinel.com/foodtrucks (Stephen M. Dowell, Orlando Sentinel / October 4, 2011)

The Food Truck Bazaar DeLand: 5-8 p.m. Sunday, March 17; Earl Brown Park, 751 S. Alabama Ave., DeLand; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

The Food Truck Bazaar Mount Dora: 5:30-8:30 p.m. Thursday, March 21, April 18 and May 16; corner of Fourth and Alexander Streets, downtown Mount Dora; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

Independence Food Truck Night: 5-9 p.m. Thursday, March 21; 14219 Pleach St., Winter Garden; foodtruckbreakout.comWindermere

Windermere Truck Night: 5-9:30 p.m. Friday, March 22; Town Hall, 520 Main St., Windermere; town.windermere.fl.us

Food Truck Wars: noon-6 p.m., Saturday, March 23; 1700 Oviedo Marketplace Blvd., Oviedo; foodtruckcrazy.com

•REGULAR EVENTS

Trucking Tuesdays: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesdays; First United Methodist Church, 142 E. Jackson St., Orlando; 407-849-6080

Tasty Tuesdays: 6-10 p.m. Tuesdays; The Milk Bar, 2424 E. Robinson St., Orlando; 407-896-4954

Wild Wild Wednesdays: 5-9 p.m. Wednesdays; 4022 S. Conway Road, Orlando; 321-750-6820

Food Truck Cafe: 6-9 p.m. Wednesdays; Lake Lily Park, 840 Lake Lily Drive, Maitland; 407-539-6268

Apopka‘s Food Truck Round Up: 5:30-9 p.m. first Thursday of each month; Kit Land Nelson Park, 18 N. Forest Ave., Apopka

Mount Dora Brew & Chew: 5-10 p.m. Thursdays; Mount Dora Brewing’s Rocking Rabbit Brewery, 405 S. Highland St., Mount Dora; 407-340-1002

Edgewood Food Trucks: 5-8 p.m. Thursdays; 405 Larue Ave., Edgewood; edgewood-fl.gov

Food Truck Fridays: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Fridays; RDV Sportsplex, 8701 Maitland Summit Blvd., Orlando; 407-916-2442

Wall Street Block Party: 11 p.m.-3 a.m. Friday and Saturday; Wall Street Plaza (between Orange and Court Avenues), Orlando; foodtruckbreakout.com

Food on Wheels: 5-10 p.m. Saturdays; Tropical Ford, 9900 S. Orange Blossom Trail, Orlando; 407-936-4332

Leesburg Food Truck-n-Flick Nights: 5:30-9 p.m. second Saturday of the month; FoodTrucknFlick.LeesburgPartnership.com

Munchies Food Truck Sundays: 1-10 p.m. Sundays; 1737 N. Alafaya Trail, Orlando; 321-662-0738

•COMING SOON

The Food Truck Bazaar Titusville: 5-8 p.m. March 25; Sandpoint Park, 101 N. Washington Ave., Titusville; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

The Food Truck Bazaar DeBary: 5-8 p.m. March 28; Gateway Center for the Arts, 880 N. U.S. Highway 17-92 (at Saxon Boulevard), DeBary; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

Trucks & Tech: 6 p.m. April 25; in the parking lot of the old Amway Arena in downtown Orlando, next to Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre; trucksandtech.com

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/restaurants/foodtrucks/os-food-trucks-orlando-march17-23-20130317,0,7602460.story

The whirs and hisses of drills and welding torches carry outside a warehouse tucked away in a Fort Lauderdale office park. Inside, rows of step vans and delivery trucks are being reborn as food trucks.

As mobile eateries have flourished in South Florida in recent years, food truck builders have also shifted into high gear.

These mobile food truck factories — including Concession Nation in Fort Lauderdale, AAA Concession Trucks and Trailers in Davie, and FoodCart USA in Miami — scour the state for new and late-model Chevy, Ford and GMC step vans as well as used flower, fire and delivery trucks (and in one case, a shuttle van from NASA). They add fryers, refrigerators and stainless steel surfaces and turn them into rolling restaurants.

“Everybody wants one,” said Alexander Alvarez, owner of Concession Nation, which completed 126 jobs in 2012, a 34 percent increase from 2011.

The weakened economy and high unemployment of the past few years have helped drive the local food truck boom. As people were laid off or considering job changes, some decided to become their own boss and invest in mobile units. Meanwhile, TV programs such as Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race” and the Cooking Channel’s “Eat Street” were showing contestants making thousands of dollars a day with a customized food truck.

Yes, food truck operators have costs such as gas, food inventory and permits. But these are “less expensive than brick-and-mortar facilities, making it easier to enter the food service business,” said Ron Grimes, manager of environmental health programs at NSF International, a nonprofit that develops standards for equipment used in food service establishments such as food trucks.

“People don’t have to pay rent [with a food truck], and they are not committed to one place,” said Bruce Hicks, owner of AAA Concession Trucks and Trailers, adding that his business doubled to 30 trucks in 2012 from the previous year, from a mix of local and national clients.

He began to shift his business toward food truck building in the past two years after noticing a decline in RV-related jobs.

“I saw that [business] going away. People were in foreclosures and losing their homes,” Hicks said.

These days, he’s getting requests to create food trucks for freestanding businesses such as Popeye’s fast-food chicken and Donna’s Restaurant and Lounge, which has locations throughout Broward County.

He was also hired to outfit an all-white, 8-foot GMC step van for Gozen Yogurt, a self-service frozen yogurt company based in Philadelphia. It will be painted in orange, yellow and blue swirls and have a flat-screen TV, freezer and four self-serve yogurt machines. Once completed later this month, the truck will be ready to dispense sorbet, dulce de leche and caramel-flavored treats at corporate parties and festivals from Jupiter to Miami.

“The real advantage to having a food truck is that you will be able bring the entire frozen yogurt store experience to someone’s home,” said Adam Zell, the Florida partner for Gozen Yogurt.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the ever-growing popularity of food truck fare and events. The National Restaurant Association doesn’t track the number of food trucks in the United States, but the group has found that consumers have been increasingly flocking to mobile eateries.

In a 2012 association survey, 43 percent of adults said they had bought items from a food truck.

The demand for food trucks, Concession Nation’s Alvarez said, comes from a base of customers hungry for “fast-food but better quality. You get a homemade plate served to you in 10 minutes.”

At Concession Nation’s offices and warehouse in Fort Lauderdale, calls pour in from throughout the country. The San Francisco 49ers football team, for example, had the company create a team-themed concession trailer.

And the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach recently hired Concession Nation to build an 18-foot food truck to sell some of the dishes found at the resorts’ restaurants such as Gotham Steak and Scarpetta. The truck will roam the property, complete with three flatscreen monitors showing video of the hotel’s amenities.

“It’s a truck that we are going to use to feature lots of different venues in the resort,” said Thomas Connell, the resort’s executive chef. “We are going to use it for special events, barbecues, LIV [nightclub] after-hours … wherever our customers need it really.”

Costs range per builder, but a used food truck can cost $3,000 to $20,000, depending on the mileage, year, condition and size, which can be 16 or 18 feet long. Fully-loaded new trucks can run as much as $100,000. Generally, vendors find the trucks for the client, but a customer can bring a truck to a contractor and have it outfitted with equipment.

Workers strip the rear (or the box) of the truck, install aluminum walls and diamond-plated flooring. They add stainless-steel counters, refrigerators, sinks and deep fryers, or whatever the client requests. Some owners add LED lights on their roofs and flat screens to promote their menus to potential passers-by.

Concession Nation, which features its work on fastfoodtruck.com, also wraps the exterior of the vehicle to brand the food and services.

“You have a brand-new truck inside and, plus, you have free advertising whenever you hit the road,” said Monica Gonzalez, chief financial officer at Concession Nation. A typical job there lasts about five days.

Craig Larson, owner of Lucille’s Bad to the Bone BBQ in Boca Raton and Boynton Beach, wanted a food truck as a side catering business to bring his culinary fare to office workers daily.

“We realized there was as significant truck scene going on down in [Miami-Dade] but didn’t see a lot of it in Palm Beach,” he said.

So last year he sought the services of Concession Nation, which transformed a 2001 GMC 28-foot-long step van used for flower deliveries in Disney World into Lucille’s on Wheels, a black food truck bedecked with the image of a smiling red-headed woman carrying a tray of food.

“We wanted to do something whimsical, slightly southern, slightly risque. The whole deal with the truck was to have fun,” said Larson, whose mobile unit houses a three-compartment sink, two fryers and a 4-foot grill that makes barbecue chicken nachos and fries slicked in gravy. “It’s a whole rebirth for that truck from what it did originally.”

http://www.southflorida.com/news/fl-food-truck-builders-20130306,0,3231810.story

Follow the Charlie’s Gourmet Pastries food truck on Facebook. (Charlie’s Gourmet Pastries / September 13, 2012)

The Food Truck Bazaar Orlando: 6-9 p.m. Sunday, March 10; behind Orlando Fashion Square, 3201 E. Colonial Drive; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

Leesburg Food Truck-n-Flick Night: 5:30-9 p.m. (8 p.m. family-friendly movie) Saturday, March16; 510 W. Main St.; FoodTrucknFlick.LeesburgPartnership.com

•REGULAR EVENTS

Trucking Tuesdays: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesdays; First United Methodist Church, 142 E. Jackson St., Orlando; 407-849-6080

Tasty Tuesdays: 6-10 p.m. Tuesdays; The Milk Bar, 2424 E. Robinson St., Orlando; 407-896-4954

Wild Wild Wednesdays: 5-9 p.m. Wednesdays; 4022 S. Conway Road, Orlando; 321-750-6820

Food Truck Cafe: 6-9 p.m. Wednesdays; Lake Lily Park, 840 Lake Lily Drive, Maitland; 407-539-6268

Apopka‘s Food Truck Round Up: 5:30-9 p.m. first Thursday of each month; Kit Land Nelson Park, 18 N. Forest Ave., Apopka

Mount Dora Brew & Chew: 5-10 p.m. Thursdays; Mount Dora Brewing’s Rocking Rabbit Brewery, 405 S. Highland St., Mount Dora; 407-340-1002

Edgewood Food Trucks: 5-8 p.m. Thursdays; 405 Larue Ave., Edgewood; edgewood-fl.gov

Food Truck Fridays: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Fridays; RDV Sportsplex, 8701 Maitland Summit Blvd., Orlando; 407-916-2442

Wall Street Block Party: 11 p.m.-3 a.m. Friday and Saturday; Wall Street Plaza (between Orange and Court Avenues), Orlando; foodtruckbreakout.com

Food on Wheels: 5-10 p.m. Saturdays; Tropical Ford, 9900 S. Orange Blossom Trail, Orlando; 407-936-4332

Leesburg Food Truck-n-Flick Nights: 5:30-9 p.m. second Saturday of the month; FoodTrucknFlick.LeesburgPartnership.com

Munchies Food Truck Sundays: 1-10 p.m. Sundays; 1737 N. Alafaya Trail, Orlando; 321-662-0738

•COMING SOON

The Food Truck Bazaar DeLand: 5-8 p.m. March 17; Earl Brown Park, 751 S. Alabama Ave., DeLand; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

The Food Truck Bazaar Mount Dora: 5:30-8:30 p.m. March 21, April 18 and May 16; corner of Fourth and Alexander Streets, downtown Mount Dora; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

Independence Food Truck Night: 5-9 p.m. March 21; 14219 Pleach St., Winter Garden; foodtruckbreakout.comWindermere

Windermere Truck Night: 5-9:30 p.m. March 22; Town Hall, 520 Main St., Windermere; town.windermere.fl.us

Food Truck Wars: noon-6 p.m., March 23; 1700 Oviedo Marketplace Blvd., Oviedo; foodtruckcrazy.com

The Food Truck Bazaar Titusville: 5-8 p.m. March 25; Sandpoint Park, 101 N. Washington Ave., Titusville; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

The Food Truck Bazaar DeBary: 5-8 p.m. March 28; Gateway Center for the Arts, 880 N. U.S. Highway 17-92 (at Saxon Boulevard), DeBary; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

Trucks & Tech: 6 p.m. April 25; in the parking lot of the old Amway Arena in downtown Orlando, next to Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre; trucksandtech.com

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/restaurants/foodtrucks/os-food-trucks-orlando-march10-16-20130310,0,2425104.story

Follow the Charlie’s Gourmet Pastries food truck on Facebook. (Charlie’s Gourmet Pastries / September 13, 2012)

The Food Truck Bazaar Orlando: 6-9 p.m. Sunday, March 10; behind Orlando Fashion Square, 3201 E. Colonial Drive; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

Leesburg Food Truck-n-Flick Night: 5:30-9 p.m. (8 p.m. family-friendly movie) Saturday, March16; 510 W. Main St.; FoodTrucknFlick.LeesburgPartnership.com

•REGULAR EVENTS

Trucking Tuesdays: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesdays; First United Methodist Church, 142 E. Jackson St., Orlando; 407-849-6080

Tasty Tuesdays: 6-10 p.m. Tuesdays; The Milk Bar, 2424 E. Robinson St., Orlando; 407-896-4954

Food Truck Cafe: 6-9 p.m. Wednesdays; Lake Lily Park, 840 Lake Lily Drive, Maitland; 407-539-6268

Apopka‘s Food Truck Round Up: 5:30-9 p.m. first Thursday of each month; Kit Land Nelson Park, 18 N. Forest Ave., Apopka

Mount Dora Brew & Chew: 5-10 p.m. Thursdays; Mount Dora Brewing’s Rocking Rabbit Brewery, 405 S. Highland St., Mount Dora; 407-340-1002

Edgewood Food Trucks: 5-8 p.m. Thursdays; 405 Larue Ave., Edgewood; edgewood-fl.gov

Food Truck Fridays: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Fridays; RDV Sportsplex, 8701 Maitland Summit Blvd., Orlando; 407-916-2442

Wall Street Block Party: 11 p.m.-3 a.m. Friday and Saturday; Wall Street Plaza (between Orange and Court Avenues), Orlando; foodtruckbreakout.com

Food on Wheels: 5-10 p.m. Saturdays; Tropical Ford, 9900 S. Orange Blossom Trail, Orlando; 407-936-4332

Leesburg Food Truck-n-Flick Nights: 5:30-9 p.m. second Saturday of the month; FoodTrucknFlick.LeesburgPartnership.com

Munchies Food Truck Sundays: 1-10 p.m. Sundays; 1737 N. Alafaya Trail, Orlando; 321-662-0738

•COMING SOON

The Food Truck Bazaar DeLand: 5-8 p.m. March 17; Earl Brown Park, 751 S. Alabama Ave., DeLand; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

The Food Truck Bazaar Mount Dora: 5:30-8:30 p.m. March 21, April 18 and May 16; corner of Fourth and Alexander Streets, downtown Mount Dora; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

Independence Food Truck Night: 5-9 p.m. March 21; 14219 Pleach St., Winter Garden; foodtruckbreakout.comWindermere

Windermere Truck Night: 5-9:30 p.m. March 22; Town Hall, 520 Main St., Windermere; town.windermere.fl.us

Food Truck Wars: noon-6 p.m., March 23; 1700 Oviedo Marketplace Blvd., Oviedo; foodtruckcrazy.com

The Food Truck Bazaar Titusville: 5-8 p.m. March 25; Sandpoint Park, 101 N. Washington Ave., Titusville; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

The Food Truck Bazaar DeBary: 5-8 p.m. March 28; Gateway Center for the Arts, 880 N. U.S. Highway 17-92 (at Saxon Boulevard), DeBary; thefoodtruckbazaar.com

Trucks & Tech: 6 p.m. April 25; in the parking lot of the old Amway Arena in downtown Orlando, next to Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre; trucksandtech.com

•HOW TO FOLLOW THAT TRUCK

All event times and locations subject to change. Keep up with food-truck activities at thedailycity.com, thefoodtruckbazaar.com, orlandosfoodtrucks.com, cravepromo.com, droolius.com and tastychomps.com, websites developed by fans of local food. Also, truck owners use Facebook and Twitter to let fans know about locations.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-food-trucks-orlando-march10-16-20130310,0,5064590.story

The whirs and hisses of drills and welding torches carry outside a warehouse tucked away in aFort Lauderdale office park. Inside, rows of step vans and delivery trucks are being reborn as food trucks.

As mobile eateries have flourished in South Florida in recent years, food truck builders have also shifted into high gear.

These mobile food truck factories — including Concession Nation in Fort Lauderdale, AAAConcession Trucks and Trailers in Davie, and FoodCart USA in Miami — scour the state for new and late-model Chevy, Ford and GMC step vans as well as used flower, fire and delivery trucks (and in one case, a shuttle van from NASA). They add fryers, refrigerators and stainless steel surfaces and turn them into rolling restaurants.

Bruce Hicks, owner of AAA Concession Trucks and Trailers in Davie, buys used bread and delivery trucks and converts them into rolling restaurants for clients locally and out of state.

“Everybody wants one,” said Alexander Alvarez, owner of Concession Nation, which completed 126 jobs in 2012, a 34 percent increase from 2011.

The weakened economy and high unemployment of the past few years have helped drive the local food truck boom. As people were laid off or considering job changes, some decided to become their own boss and invest in mobile units. Meanwhile, TV programs such as Food Network‘s “The Great Food Truck Race” and the Cooking Channel‘s “Eat Street” were showing contestants making thousands of dollars a day with a customized food truck

Yes, food truck operators have costs such as gas, food inventory and permits. But these are “less expensive than brick-and-mortar facilities, making it easier to enter the food service business,” said Ron Grimes, manager of environmental health programs at NSF International, a nonprofit that develops standards for equipment used in food service establishments such as food trucks.

“People don’t have to pay rent [with a food truck], and they are not committed to one place,” said Bruce Hicks, owner of AAA Concession Trucks and Trailers, adding that his business doubled to 30 trucks in 2012 from the previous year, from a mix of local and national clients.

He began to shift his business toward food truck building in the past two years after noticing a decline in RV-related jobs.

“I saw that [business] going away. People were in foreclosures and losing their homes,” Hicks said.

These days, he’s getting requests to create food trucks for freestanding businesses such as Popeye’s fast-food chicken and Donna’s Restaurant and Lounge, which has locations throughout Broward County.

He was also hired to outfit an all-white, 8-foot GMC step van for Gozen Yogurt, a self-service frozen yogurt company based in Philadelphia. It will be painted in orange, yellow and blue swirls and have a flat-screen TV, freezer and four self-serve yogurt machines. Once completed later this month, the truck will be ready to dispense sorbet, dulce de leche and caramel-flavored treats at corporate parties and festivals from Jupiter to Miami.

“The real advantage to having a food truck is that you will be able bring the entire frozen yogurt store experience to someone’s home,” said Adam Zell, the Florida partner for Gozen Yogurt.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the ever-growing popularity of food truck fare and events. The National Restaurant Association doesn’t track the number of food trucks in the United States, but the group has found that consumers have been increasingly flocking to mobile eateries.

In a 2012 association survey, 43 percent of adults said they had bought items from a food truck.

The demand for food trucks, Concession Nation’s Alvarez said, comes from a base of customers hungry for “fast-food but better quality. You get a homemade plate served to you in 10 minutes.”

At Concession Nation’s offices and warehouse in Fort Lauderdale, calls pour in from throughout the country. The San Francisco 49ers football team, for example, had the company create a team-themed concession trailer.

And the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach recently hired Concession Nation to build an 18-foot food truck to sell some of the dishes found at the resorts’ restaurants such as Gotham Steak and Scarpetta. The truck will roam the property, complete with three flatscreen monitors showing video of the hotel’s amenities.

“It’s a truck that we are going to use to feature lots of different venues in the resort,” said Thomas Connell, the resort’s executive chef. “We are going to use it for special events, barbecues, LIV [nightclub] after-hours … wherever our customers need it really.”

Costs range per builder, but a used food truck can cost $3,000 to $20,000, depending on the mileage, year, condition and size, which can be 16 or 18 feet long. Fully-loaded new trucks can run as much as $100,000. Generally, vendors find the trucks for the client, but a customer can bring a truck to a contractor and have it outfitted with equipment.

Workers strip the rear (or the box) of the truck, install aluminum walls and diamond-plated flooring. They add stainless-steel counters, refrigerators, sinks and deep fryers, or whatever the client requests. Some owners add LED lights on their roofs and flat screens to promote their menus to potential passers-by.

Concession Nation, which features its work on fastfoodtruck.com, also wraps the exterior of the vehicle to brand the food and services.

“You have a brand-new truck inside and, plus, you have free advertising whenever you hit the road,” said Monica Gonzalez, chief financial officer at Concession Nation. A typical job there lasts about five days.

Craig Larson, owner of Lucille’s Bad to the Bone BBQ in Boca Raton and Boynton Beach, wanted a food truck as a side catering business to bring his culinary fare to office workers daily.

“We realized there was as significant truck scene going on down in [Miami-Dade] but didn’t see a lot of it in Palm Beach,” he said.

So last year he sought the services of Concession Nation, which transformed a 2001 GMC 28-foot-long step van used for flower deliveries in Disney World into Lucille’s on Wheels, a black food truck bedecked with the image of a smiling red-headed woman carrying a tray of food.

“We wanted to do something whimsical, slightly southern, slightly risque. The whole deal with the truck was to have fun,” said Larson, whose mobile unit houses a three-compartment sink, two fryers and a 4-foot grill that makes barbecue chicken nachos and fries slicked in gravy. “It’s a whole rebirth for that truck from what it did originally.”

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/fl-food-truck-builders-20130306,0,5442847.story