Food Truckin' - Checking out some Food Truck Festivals

In anticipation of soon opening our own food truck, we decided that I needed to do a little reconnaissance on the trucks already operating in our area. Sadly, there just weren't that many (maybe this is a good thing for us!).  There were a couple of Mexican trailers (both off-shoots of B&M restaurants), a BBQ trailer that never moves and is open only sporadically, a sandwich trailer (also from a restaurant), and another eclectic trailer from a popular coffee shop.  None of them seemed to do much with the "lunch stop" business and mostly showed up for events or were used for catering.  It was tough to check them out efficiently.  We discussed going down to the Phoenix Valley where there are hundreds of trucks operating, but that seemed like a lot of work and travel tracking enough of them down to make it worthwhile.

Then we heard about some upcoming food truck festivals.  One in Flagstaff and one in Payson (each about 2 hours away) and one in Show Low, just an hour away.  There would be dozens of trucks of all types at each, so I made plans to attend them all.
After attending...

• The Flagstaff Food Truck Frenzy (July 2018),
• the Payson Food Truck Round-up (August 2018), and
• Battle of the Bands and Vans competition in Show Low (September 2018) 

... here are some observations:

We got there before opening time hoping to chat up some vendors and made the rounds, trying to take a picture of each rig and their menu.  As the crowds got bigger, I made it a point to see which trucks had the longest lines, assuming these to be the busiest or most popular (I've since learned this is not always the case).

All the events required trucks to have a sampler special for the event (one was $5, another was $3) which I thought was a great idea as someone who wanted to graze my way through the fest, trying the food at as many trucks as possible. Not sure how the truckers felt about it.

There was a good mix of local trucks and those who came up from the Phoenix Valley at all the events. It surprised me how few people the local trucks seemed to draw.  I guess it makes sense that people want to try something new; something that they don't have regular access to.

I was even more surprised at the HUGE lines at some trucks.  I talked to some folks near the fronts of the lines and they told me they had been standing in line for that one truck for 40 minutes! 

"So, this is a great truck," I asked, "and you know it is worth the wait?" 

"No." They all said. They had never seen it before or heard anything about it!

Some trucks with long order lines also had many people milling about waiting to pick up their food.  Again, I asked, "How long they had been waiting for their after ordering?" The common answer was 20 minutes!  

That's a whole hour waiting for a couple of steamed dumplings or a lobster roll! Trucks, where the customers wait that long for food after ordering, are just TOO SLOW! I just don't get it!

Another eye-opener was the different levels of sanitation and professionalism on display from the various trucks. Some were neat and clean and organized, despite being very busy.  Others looked like a hurricane had just passed through with trash all over, grease puddles, cooks working without hair restraints or gloves, raw food touching finished food on the grill, etc.

By-and-large, there was surprisingly little openness to the trucks, which I thought was part of the allure of them - to see your food being prepared, see and interact with the chefs, etc.  With a few notable exceptions of outdoor grills and open cooking porches on a few rigs, all that one could see was the cashier/order taker either through a tiny window or at a table set up in front of the truck.

Checking out some amazing truck wrap-jobs was great fun.

I also enjoyed "peeking behind the curtain" and investigating the venue infrastructure.  How (if) there was any external power supplied to the trucks, how different trucks handled their overflow food storage, trash, auxiliary outside cooking spaces, etc.