The 2025 food truck season is nearing an end, and yet I feel like we never truly got started. It’s been a whirlwind of stress, anxiety, excitement, happiness and frustration. Through it all, there have been many lessons learned and adjustments made.

Every time we go out and set up, we experience something different and learn something new. It’s exciting, but it can also be exhausting. Below are some of the key points I’ve learned.

Mobile Pizzeria Challenges

As much as I love that we have a mobile restaurant – I feel that’s a huge selling point, especially once we open to catering weddings and other important events – I find myself often daydreaming about how much easier our life would be if we had a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

With a permanent location, every piece of equipment would have a dedicated spot, everything would be easier to clean and maintain, and we’d be ready for service at any time. The physical demand of unloading and loading equipment just to make some pizzas for a few hours wouldn’t be a thing.

We wouldn’t have to figure out when we can squeeze time into the shared space at our commissary based on the booking calendar. Nor would we have to wait for someone to finish in the dish pit before we could wash our dishes and go home.

Finally: Pulling a trailer is stressful. Backing it up into a tight spot is even worse.

I say all that not to discourage you from opening a mobile pizzeria. I would do it again, without hesitation. But looking back at all of the classes and seminars I attended, not once did someone talk about how physically demanding it is to set up and tear down.

Admittedly, if we had opted for a truck or enclosed trailer, the physical demand would be much lower, but not fully eliminated.

Little Will Go As Planned

Coming into this year, I had a grand vision that we’d open, and like clockwork we’d set up every two weeks (our target cadence) for the entire summer and into the fall, picking up a private or public event here and there. In my mind, it would be smooth sailing. Along with that, I pictured us offering complicated specials with advanced toppings and finishing steps.

Just as we were getting into a rhythm of placing food orders, making dough and setting up, I got injured and we were unable to open for roughly two months. Instead of opening over a dozen times this season, it’s looking like we’ll be lucky if we get eight services in.

I had so many plans that just aren’t going to come to fruition this season.

While I was recovering, I had a lot of time to reset my personal expectations for what this season is going to look like. However, I am frustrated by how far behind my personal goals and schedule we are.

Had we been able to get into a routine, our confidence level about all aspects of running our business would be far ahead of where we’re at now, and we’d be more efficient as well. In our short time of being open, we’ve sped up ticket times and increased the complexity level of our specials, but we’re nowhere near ready for online ordering or booking large catering events. And that’s exactly where I wanted us to be at the end of season one.

I can’t remember which class it was during Pizza Expo 2025, but I remember someone saying that if you’re treating a mobile pizzeria as a hobby, you’re doing it wrong.

I smirked and wrote it off at the time, but I get it now. Setting aside the financial implications of not being consistent, it’s incredibly difficult to refine your workflow and end product if you’re only doing this occasionally.

It takes practice to be great, and we need more practice.

Share Your Knowledge

The morning after our first service, I sat down with my wife and kids and talked it through. Where did we go wrong? What did we do right? Where could we improve?

As they talked about aspects they wanted to change, I started to feel really guilty. Guilty that I didn’t properly prepare them. I had spent the last two years soaking up knowledge from industry experts and YouTube influencers, and I had done my best to share it with them. I didn’t do enough. I let them down.

Since then, I’ve done my best to take their feedback, integrate it into our service and refine it as needed. I’ve also set out to make sure I talk through everything I’m envisioning. I’m not perfect, and we still have a long way to go, but every time we go out, things run more smoothly.

Take Notes

Every time I make dough, prepare a special, or we go out for service, I tell myself I need to sit down and journal or take notes about how it all went. What did I like? What didn’t I like? What do I want to change? I’ve yet to do it, and each time I run into a situation where I could easily have the answer if only I’d taken notes. I kick myself for it.

For example, we had a spinach pizza special ready to go right before I got hurt. We’d spent an afternoon and 12 pizzas going over the recipe, trying different cheeses and figuring out precisely how we wanted to finish it. We were ready to launch it that same week.

Then, the doctor hit me with bad news, and we didn’t do anything pizza-related for weeks. When it came time to actually serve our special, it took my wife and I a few days of discussing the finer details to fully remember exactly what we did. Heck, even as we set up for service, we were still questioning it.

So, I’m including taking notes as some sage advice for you, but also as a reminder for myself. Take notes! Future you will thank present you.

Thank You

There are countless other stories and lessons learned I could have shared here – or in any of the weekly installments we’ve published during this series. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed sharing my experience, and hopefully those insights have helped you – even if just a little bit.

Even more so, I’ve enjoyed talking to everyone who has reached out with kind words, cheered me on or asked for advice. I continue to be amazed at how welcoming this industry is when it comes to sharing knowledge and offering advice.

I want to say thank you to everyone I’ve interacted with along the way. You’ve made a newcomer feel right at home.

Cheers.

JASON CIPRIANI is the owner of Sips & Pies, a mobile wood-fired pizzeria serving Neapolitan-inspired pizza, in Colorado.

The post Launching a Mobile Pizzeria: Lessons Learned (Part 16) appeared first on Pizza Today.

Coming off the high of our successful private preview in October, I was certain we were ready to immediately open. But with winter looming, going through the licensing process and paying all the necessary fees just didn’t make sense. And so, we decided we’d officially open in the spring, a full six months later. So, we continued to learn and ideate while we waited.

I’ll never forget the very first order we took for Sips & Pies – not because it was a milestone I’d dreamt about my entire life, but because of how horribly wrong it went.

Everything started according to plan. We got to an empty lot next to my wife’s office with plenty of time to set up, get the fire roaring and have everything in place for a 4 p.m. opening. Our kids arrived shortly after school let out. The five of us were nervous but excited.

We were ready early, and with a line already forming, I took our first order around 3:45 p.m. My wife began stretching and topping each of the three pizzas. When the first one was ready, I slid it onto the launch peel, walked over to the oven and, as I began to slide it off onto the oven floor, a giant hole appeared. It stuck to the peel. First pizza ruined.

After getting rid of the mess, I turned around and put the second pizza on the peel, double-checked it wasn’t sticking, and went to launch it into the oven, when it happened again. Another giant tear, another ruined pizza.

It was now 4 p.m., we had a line of at least 15 people, already had five orders on the board, and the first two pizzas we sold were ruined. I couldn’t bring myself to turn around and tell my wife we needed to remake another pizza.

What the Heck Am I Doing?

I vividly remember resting my head on the oven’s shelf as my mind filled with self doubt about whether or not we could even do this. What was I thinking? Why did I think I could open a mobile pizzeria? Should I turn around and tell everyone we were just going to close for the day? Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this.

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that feeling frustrated is a sign that you’re learning, and it was time to learn.

I walked over to my wife, let her know we needed another remake, and strategized potential fixes with her.

By this point – probably 4:15-ish – the line was longer than I imagined it being on our opening day, we had a stack of tickets, and we hadn’t even finished the first order yet.

But the five of us regrouped and started to slowly and methodically work through our orders. Our ticket times were far too long, a problem compounded by a giant gust of wind blowing all our tickets off the prep station, mixing them up in the process, but we kept moving.

We must have apologized for the long wait and thanked customers for their patience at least 100 times that day.

By 7 p.m., we’d sold 76 pizzas, had $1,382 in sales and were as exhausted as we were relieved.

Did We Make Any Money?

The next day, after licking my wounds, I sat down and looked more closely at the numbers. I created yet another spreadsheet to track how much money we spent on that service, including supplies, commissary fees, paying our kids and our amortized insurance, and within that silo, we’d made $491 in profit. Not too shabby. (Granted, my wife and I are not paying ourselves yet. We’re investing as much as possible back into the business for now, so our profit percentage is going to be higher than normal.)

As proud as I was of my wife and kids after our private preview, I was even more proud of them after our first service. We got our butts kicked, but we kept working hard together, as a team, and got through it.

We learned a lot that night. I learned a lot. And that’s exactly what I’ll cover next week in the last installment (for now) in this series.

JASON CIPRIANI is the owner of Sips & Pies, a mobile wood-fired pizzeria serving Neapolitan-inspired pizza, in Colorado.

The post Launching a Mobile Pizzeria: Grand Opening (Part 15) appeared first on Pizza Today.

Shortly after bringing our trailer home, we decided we wanted to host a private tasting as a soft opening at our house. We thought it would give us a chance to test our processes – albeit in a very controlled environment – while also getting feedback on our pizza. And so, in October 2024, we invited around 75 people, split up over two days, to come to our house and experience what we’d been working on.

Who to Invite?

Prior to our preview weekend, I’d never run a wood-fired oven on my own, managing the fire and turning pizzas. My wife had never prepped multiple pizzas to order, with a line building. My kids had never taken an order, let alone cut and boxed pizzas.

We were a bunch of rookies full of fear. And with that in mind, we decided to invite only family and close friends – people who would be patient with us should anything go wrong – to our Saturday session.

For Sunday, we opted to invite friends, acquaintances and complete strangers that followed us on Facebook and Instagram.

We made it clear in our private Facebook invites that that pizza was on us. We just wanted to test, learn and have some fun.

All told, 75 people RSVP’d: 30 on Day One and 45 on Day Two.

Deciding on a Menu

With invites sent out and RSVPs pouring in, it was time to decide on a menu. Initially, I was dead set on doing a cheese, pepperoni, sausage and a pickle pizza with white sauce. I wanted to show our full vision for the menu. But after some back and forth, my wife convinced me to keep it simple with just a cheese, pepperoni and sausage pizza.

At this point in our journey, our dough and sauce recipes were pretty much set, as was our cheese selection. We were undecided about which pepperoni and sausage we were going to use, however.

I reached out to the only food supplier we had an account with at that time and asked for samples of their best/most popular pepperoni and sausage, on top of placing an order for the rest of our ingredients and a few other small items.

We also used this time to test customer reaction and test various types of drinks we were considering selling. We bought almost every major brand of sparkling water and a few different flavors of hop water.

Talk is Cheap

We had a few weeks after sending out invites to prepare for our debut. During that time, I tried to walk my family through what to expect, our process and how to handle various situations. But the truth is, there’s no substitute for getting your hands dirty and gaining experience.

The first day went smoothly. We had set a three-hour window and told people to show up when it was convenient for them.

Attendees slowly trickled in, allowing us methodically to go through each step of our process. We served 25 pizzas that day, allowing us to confirm our workflow was valid. Perhaps more importantly, we all gained confidence.

Day Two, however, was the exact opposite experience. Instead of some people showing up right at noon and the rest slowly filtering in, not a single person showed up at opening time. Fifteen minutes after the hour, still nobody. When the clock struck 12:30, it was as if everyone we invited had waited around the corner and walked in together, as a giant group.

We were slammed.

Everything I had taught my family, along with everything we learned the previous day, was put to the test. Instead of making 25 pizzas over three hours, we made nearly 50 pizzas in 35 minutes.

It was as stressful as it was exhilarating to see the five of us work together as a team, doing something we’d never done before, and kicking butt while doing it.

After Day Two, I made sure my wife and kids knew how proud I was of us. I also felt like we were ready to open the next day. I still smile from ear to ear thinking about that day.

Feedback is Invaluable

In exchange for feeding people, we asked that they take a few minutes to fill out an anonymous survey. I created a QR code they could scan after ordering that took them directly to the Google Form.

The survey included eight questions:

• Which pizza did you order?
• What did you think of the dough/crust? (Scale of 1-5)
• What did you think of the sauce? (Scale of 1-5)
• What did you think of cheese? (Scale of 1-5)
• What did you think of toppings? (Scale of 1-5)
• How much would you pay for the pizza you had today? ($13-$16)
• Did you like our drinks selection? Why or why not?
• General feedback. It’s OK, don’t be shy

We got 28 responses, which we attribute to families filling out the survey together instead of each person individually.

The responses confirmed we were on the right track with our dough, sauce and cheese. The toppings (pepperoni and sausage) also were well received.

Forty-three percent of survey respondents said they would pay $14 for the pizza they ordered.

The most valuable feedback was on the question about drinks. Our selection was a giant miss. A handful of people said they liked sparkling water and healthier selection, but the majority asked for some sort of iced tea or soda. So, we went back to the drawing board.

The feedback section is my favorite. Multiple responses started with some variation of “I normally don’t like pizza crust, but …” while others asked for more sauce or adding basil on top of the cheese instead of under it.

All in all, it was valuable feedback that we took with us into the winter, as we finished preparing for our grand opening, also known as one of the scariest days of my life.

Check back next week to see why. …

JASON CIPRIANI is the owner of Sips & Pies, a mobile wood-fired pizzeria serving Neapolitan-inspired pizza, in Colorado.

The post Launching a Mobile Pizzeria: Soft Opening (Part 14) appeared first on Pizza Today.

Throughout the process leading up to opening day – from picking a trailer to getting licensed and insured – we purposefully didn’t approach any local business owners to ask if we could use their parking lot or facilities to sell pizza.

Once we were licensed, however, the hunt was on. Truth be told, we didn’t have to look very far to find two locations we’re happy with. Although, we’re open to (and plan on) exploring other options in the future.

Lucky Locations

So far, we’ve set up at two different locations. One is an empty lot next door to where my wife works. Her boss was kind enough to offer us the space to use whenever we want, free of charge. We had a great turnout and reception from the local neighborhood at this location.

However, the lot is located in the city, which effectively doubles the tax rate. If you read my column about pricing, you may remember that we include taxes in our listed prices, making tax rates important to keep in mind.

To use the empty lot, we had to provide the property owner with proof of liability insurance for Sips & Pies and have them sign an agreement required by our local government stating we have permission to use the space.

The second location we’ve been using is a place I’m familiar with; it’s the same exact spot where I operated my drive through coffee shop over 20 years ago. The small building we had placed there was relocated years ago (leaving a literal imprint from a paving job that occurred while it was still in place).

It’s only a couple of miles down the road from us, outside city limits with a lower overall tax rate, has power running to the nearby light pole to power our prep station, is next to a busy highway with easy access, and the businesses in the shopping center drive a lot of traffic.

The only problem? We didn’t know the current owner of the shopping center. After asking around, we discovered not only who he was, but that he’s a longtime friend of the family. A couple hours later, I was on the phone with him, getting permission to use the spot and electricity connection whenever we want.

As a form of payment, I offered to make him a few pizzas each time we set up. He’s yet to come by when we’ve been there, however. He also signed the same agreement showing we have his permission to use the property.

Both locations we’ve relied on so far happened somewhat organically, and for that, we’re fortunate.

That said, several months prior to opening, we were in talks with a local brewery to have our grand opening there. They told us they wouldn’t charge us anything to set up, nor did they want a cut of our sales. They just wanted their customers to have food available.

Fast-forward to us being ready to do a grand opening and, well, they’ve added a kitchen to their brewery and have stopped working with food trucks. So it goes, I guess.

Food Truck Groups and Unions

Over the past few months, a local food truck group has approached us on a few occasions and asked us to join. We’ve yet to do so.

Part of the reason is there’s a $100 membership fee, and then you’re required to pay $50 each time you set up at one of their events. Their main event takes place once per week at a local park, with a rotation of fellow food trucks and vendors.

One piece of advice that stuck with me from Pizza Expo 2025 was to avoid joining any food truck groups that charge fees. Instead, once you get into a routine of setting up at various local events, you’ll begin to network, and more opportunities will develop.

And so, my wife and I decided that – at least for the near term – we don’t plan to join any food truck unions or groups. We’re happy with going it on our own, for now.

Ask for Municipal Guides

I wasn’t aware until right before our first service that our municipality has a map showing where food trucks can and can’t be set up.

Not only is there a color-coded Mobile Food Vendor Location Restrictions map, but I also have to reference the city’s Zoning Map to identify the specific zone we’ll be in, and include that detail on the permission slip we need signed. It’s a little confusing to navigate either map, so you might need a decoder ring.

To be clear, I only need to reference these maps when I’m operating in city limits. In the surrounding county, which is where I live and our second location is, we don’t have to worry about it at all.

I’m not sure how other municipalities decide where mobile food vendors can and can’t set up, but I encourage you to ask if your location has a zoning or restriction map for food vendors.

JASON CIPRIANI is the owner of Sips & Pies, a mobile wood-fired pizzeria serving Neapolitan-inspired pizza, in Colorado.

The post Launching a Mobile Pizzeria: Where to Set Up (Part 13) appeared first on Pizza Today.

Admittedly, out of all the aspects of opening a mobile pizzeria, insurance is the topic I know and understand the least. I get the premise: I pay an insurance company for a plan to cover any claims I may have.

From my (basic) understanding, we needed an auto policy to cover our trailer while it’s traveling down the road, and we also needed general liability insurance to cover any accidents, injuries or property damage.

I Thought We Had a Plan 

Immediately after buying our trailer and bringing it home last fall, we called our insurance agent, whom we’ve known and worked with for years on personal stuff.

We walked him through what we bought, what we’d use it for in the spring and asked what we needed to do. We also asked him how we should title the trailer. Do we put it under our personal names? The business name?

After some back and forth and guidance from our agent, we came up with a plan to title the trailer under our names. It was added to our personal insurance for the winter (since the business wasn’t operating yet) with basic coverage that cost less than $20 a month. We were told to call back in the spring, as we got closer to opening, to increase coverage.

So, that’s what we did. Only when we called in the spring – roughly two weeks before our planned opening – we found out our insurance agent had left the agency. No big deal, right? Explain the plan to our new agent, and we’d be set. I was so wrong.

The new agent hated everything about the plan. According to him, we should have registered the trailer under the business name, and the original plan of renting the trailer to the business from our personal names (something that’s common, I’m told), wasn’t going to work.

We were instructed to create a bill of sale from ourselves to the business and go back to the DMV, pay the associated taxes and get the name on the trailer’s title changed over. I didn’t take that advice; instead, we added the business name to the title for $7 instead of paying hundreds in taxes to resell the trailer.

I’ll spare you every detail of the multiple conversations that followed, but in the end, I paid $916 for a Business Auto Comprehensive and Collision Coverage Policy that covers the trailer for one year. That plan, I’m told, covers the trailer should anything happen to it while being towed.

In addition, I had to add an “occasional business use” policy to the truck we use to tow the trailer – adding another $30 a month to our policy – just to ensure we’re totally covered.

Finally, the agent recommended we add an umbrella liability policy to our homeowners and auto liability policies with a $1 million limit per occurrence.

General Liability Is Easy

Before we could work at any of the local commissary kitchens, we were required to have a $1 million general liability insurance in place. Our commissary kitchen (along with others we toured) recommended using the Food Liability Insurance Program (FLIP) for ease of sign up and cost.

When going through the process of getting the trailer covered, I also asked our new agent for a quote on general liability. I let them know we had a quote for $65 per month through FLIP, and I was told they couldn’t come close to that cost and didn’t even quote me.

So, I signed up for FLIP. The process took maybe 10 minutes. I opted to pay for the year in full upfront to get a discount. I haven’t had to file any claims, so I can’t say whether they’re easy to work with. Hopefully I’ll never have to find out.

Be More Proactive

In the end, I spent $2,056 on insurance for our first year of business.

If you’ve read previous columns, then you know there have been many times when I debated just walking away and not opening our mobile pizzeria. I don’t know if that feeling was ever any stronger than the day I called our (new) insurance agent and was told everything we had planned to do was wrong. I called my wife immediately after speaking with the agent and told her we weren’t going to do this. The insurance was a mess, and I didn’t know how to fix it.

For whatever reason, listening to the agent (or any insurance agent, for that matter) talk about liability, policies, coverage and limits sounds like a foreign language to me. It’s downright overwhelming and so quickly can make me feel like I’m being taken advantage of.

When it comes time to renew, I plan on being better prepared. I am going to do more research instead of waiting until two weeks before opening and feeling like I have to go with the options being presented to me.

I’m already dreading it.

JASON CIPRIANI is the owner of Sips & Pies, a mobile wood-fired pizzeria serving Neapolitan-inspired pizza, in Colorado.

The post Launching a Mobile Pizzeria: Auto Insurance (Part 10) appeared first on Pizza Today.

(Editor’s note: This is the sixth installment in a series about opening a mobile pizzeria by Jason Cipriani, co-owner of Sips & Pies. You can read the other articles here.)

After deciding on a pizza style, oven and finding a truck or trailer to fit your vision, it’s easy to feel like the hard part is behind you. But there’s another major hurdle you’ll need to overcome before you can open: getting licensed.

For us, that meant obtaining a retail food license, passing a fire department inspection and getting a city sales tax license. It sounds easy, but there’s so much that goes into it. Be prepared for frustrations and roadblocks.

Talk With Local Government

Each jurisdiction is different and has varying guidelines and requirements. I strongly encourage you to begin conversations about what it takes to open a mobile pizzeria in your area before you buy your equipment.

More specifically, contact the health department and fire inspector. You want to get to a point where you have an open dialogue with the inspectors that allows you to ask questions – even if you don’t like the answers, which often was the case in our situation.

After one of many back-and-forth phone calls, with me playing messenger between the fire and health departments, trying to get approval for the portable propane ovens I wanted to use, I was told to “just buy a ($60,000) trailer” to ensure it met all requirements – even though it didn’t meet any of the requirements I’d need to convert it into a mobile pizzeria.

Disheartening.

Check the Required Boxes

Once you’ve contacted your local authorities and have a copy of the application – and, hopefully, a checklist of requirements you’ll need to meet before you submit your application – it’s time to get to work.

More than likely, you’ll need to have a Certified Food Protection Manager always on site. I earned my certification through a training and exam provider approved by my local health department. The class and test fees set me back $132 when I purchased it in 2024. Some health departments might offer the test for a smaller fee.

You’ll want to have a signed commissary agreement to prove to the health department that you’re going to use an inspected and approved commercial kitchen (some jurisdictions allow you to use your home as your commissary). I’ll talk more about commissaries in a future column.

Some areas, such as where I’m at in Colorado, require food trucks to go through a review and licensing process similar to what’s required of a brick-and-mortar restaurant. There’s a $100 application fee, a $385 Retail Food License fee once you’ve passed inspection and an $85-per-hour application-review fee.

Some other municipalities only require vendors to get a permit when they have pop-up events, with smaller application fees – a financial benefit if you do a limited number of pop ups per year. I wish this was an option for us – at least until we get into a more consistent schedule.

In addition to health and fire department permits, you’ll also want to figure out if you need any sort of sales tax licenses for the cities and counties where you’ll be operating. I needed a city sales tax license, which required filling out a few forms and $55 to obtain, but I don’t need a county sales tax license.

Another thing to keep in mind is that just because you’re fully licensed in your county doesn’t mean you can set up and do business in the next county. You might need to go through the entire process again for every county where you do business. As with all things licensing, be sure to check local laws and regulations.

Inspection Day: a Happy Let Down

The inspection process for both the health and fire departments means you’ll have to set up your truck or trailer just as you would if you were going to sell to customers – without any food, of course.

Both health and fire department inspectors offered to come to our house to look at our trailer instead of asking us to set up and tear down the trailer and equipment in their respective parking lots for what amounted to a 10-minute inspection process.

Our inspections were split over two days due to scheduling conflicts. We had our fire inspection first. The inspector ensured we had the proper fire extinguishers (a $300 Class K and $50 ABC fire extinguisher were required for our trailer), that our oven had three open air sides (the entire enclosure is open air) and offered general safety advice about handling the propane tank used for our on-demand hot water heater.

The health inspection came days later. I had spent at least 100 hours reading and analyzing all aspects of the health department guidance in preparation for the inspection. I put together a binder full of our food-safety policies, I had my wife quiz me about our safe food-handling procedures, and then I repeated those procedures to her in case the inspector quizzed her.

The lead-up to the inspection felt a lot like studying for a college final that determines whether you will graduate.

And on exam day, the test ended up including a few of the easiest questions you could imagine. In our case, we had to demonstrate we had hot running water for the handwashing station, sanitizer and test strips readily available, show our prep station got cold enough for safe food storage, and have an allergy disclaimer displayed somewhere customers could see it (we put it on our menu).

The entire inspection process took seven minutes. We were told we checked all the required boxes, and all that was left to do was go to the health department, pay our $385 licensing fee and pick up our sticker.

I was ecstatic but also felt a weird sense of disappointment that the inspection wasn’t more rigorous. I realize how foolish that sounds, and I’m grateful we passed without issue. If I hadn’t overprepared, perhaps things wouldn’t have gone so smoothly.

My biggest fear at the time was that we’d fail the first inspection, have a long list of things to fix and then have to wait several weeks for another inspection. I was relieved when the monster I created in my head turned out to be a cuddly teddy bear.

JASON CIPRIANI is the owner of Sips & Pies, a mobile wood-fired pizzeria serving Neapolitan-inspired pizza, in Colorado.

The post Launching a Mobile Pizzeria: Get Licensed (Part 6) appeared first on Pizza Today.

After choosing what style of pizza to serve – and then deciding what type of oven you’ll use – the hunt for a truck or trailer begins. The search for the perfect mobile food unit to showcase your vision can be intimidating, time consuming and as frustrating as anything you’ll experience in the process of opening a mobile pizzeria. But trust me: It’s worth every second of curiosity, wonder and frustration.

Used or new food truck?

If you’ve done any research into food trucks and trailers – both new and used – you undoubtedly have seen the sheer number of websites dedicated to the industry. The sites range from companies that will custom-build the food truck of your dreams for north of $120,000 to cookie-cutter trailers for as little as $15,000 to Facebook Marketplace listings and used food truck websites, where you can try to make a deal with the current owner.

I spent more hours than I’d like to admit on all of those websites, analyzing every listing to gauge what we should expect to pay while simultaneously looking for something that fit our budget and ever-changing vision. I messaged the seller for every listing I was remotely interested in, asking far too many questions for their liking.

All of my obsessive browsing – or research, as I like to call it – was valuable. At one point, we found a used, enclosed BBQ trailer with an open-air porch that was within our price range and only about 40 minutes away. It looked almost perfect.

After asking for pictures of the Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) plate, which includes the trailer’s total weight to ensure our truck could pull it, I noticed a model number of the trailer. A quick Google search of that model number later, I discovered the trailer was manufactured in Georgia, was listed at $19,000 brand new and came with a warranty that lasted a few years.

I’d previously looked at and researched this specific brand of trailers, and while they looked nice, previous owners often complained about poor workmanship and quality issues, making a warranty a necessity. The manufactured date on the plate confirmed the trailer had only one year of warranty left.

The asking price was within $500 of a brand-new model, which I hoped we could use as a bargaining chip if the trailer was a good fit – and mostly it was, despite some cosmetic damage we’d have to fix. The owners would not budge on the price, however, so we left without making a deal.

Finding the Right Mobile Unit

About four months before we bought our trailer, a friend sent me a link to a Facebook Marketplace listing for a pizza trailer, saying they hoped it would be a good option for us. I had already seen the listing during my countless hours of searching, but wood-fired oven just wasn’t something we wanted to mess with – or so we thought.

Fast-forward to my return from Wood Fired University, and I immediately looked to see if the listing was still live. It was. There wasn’t a lot of information about the trailer, other than it was a Fire Within Concessionaire, and the sellers wanted $22,000. For reference, a new Concessionaire trailer costs a minimum of $32,000, depending on the build.

I sent the sellers a message, and within a few days we had arranged to go look at the trailer, located a couple of hours away. That next week, I made an offer of $18,000, which was accepted.

We picked up the trailer a couple of weeks later and immediately drove it to the manufacturer’s factory to have $3,000 of renovations performed. All told, we spent $21,000 on what was effectively a brand-new trailer. Our patience had paid off.

Mobile Food Truck Advice

Don’t rush into buying the first truck or trailer you find. Scrutinize every aspect of each setup and how your vision would work. Be honest with yourself, and don’t let the excitement rush you into making a decision you’ll later regret.

Your food truck is going to be the biggest financial investment you’ll make when opening your business, so make sure you get exactly what you want!

It’s not until you buy your food truck or trailer that you can start the process of getting licensed and ready to truly open – at least, that’s how it works in Colorado. You can’t get a Retail Food License as a mobile food vendor without your food truck, which has to pass inspection before you’re granted your license. Your local municipalities may be different, so check with them.

If you can afford it, buy a brand new truck or trailer. That way, you won’t inherit someone else’s problems and you’ll start fresh. That said, do your research before shopping for the cheapest option. Ask trailer manufacturers for references and then call them prepared to ask all of your questions. If a manufacturer won’t give you references, find another manufacturer. 

If you’re shopping on a budget, like we were, then there’s nothing wrong with buying used. Try to time the purchase between late summer and mid-winter, when those who’ve decided to close their business are looking to sell. And just as you would with a brand-new trailer, ask the manufacturer for references.

JASON CIPRIANI is the owner of Sips & Pies, a mobile wood-fired pizzeria serving Neapolitan-inspired pizza, in Colorado.

The post Launching a Mobile Pizzeria: Finding a Food Truck or Trailer (Part 5) appeared first on Pizza Today.

In this series, you’ll learn why Cipriani made certain decisions, such as whether to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant or host pop-ups – and why. How his choice about what style of pizza to serve played a role in the oven he eventually purchased, and more.

Part 1: Getting Started

Part 2: Brick and Mortar vs. Pop Up or Food Truck

Part 3: Which Pizza Style to Make?

Part 4: Choosing a Pizza Oven

Part 5: Finding a Food Truck or Trailer

Part 6: Get Licensed

Part 7: Choosing a Commissary

Part 8: What Equipment Is Needed?

Part 9: Selecting Food Vendors

Part 10: Auto Insurance

Part 11: Pricing Pizzas

Part 12: Point-of sale Systems

Part 13:Where to Set Up

Part 14: Soft Opening

Part 15: Grand Opening

The post Launching a Mobile Pizzeria: The Series appeared first on Pizza Today.

Over about 15 months, my wife and I spent countless hours debating and talking about ways to make my dream of owning a pizzeria a reality. There were some non-negotiable aspects for both of us that eliminated owning a brick-and-mortar location, but outside of that we brainstormed and tried to be as creative as possible for what our business might look like.

Jason Cipriani (Courtesy photo)

Brick and Mortar Was a Non-starter

Opening a brick-and-mortar pizza shop has always been the dream – and frankly, it will continue to be. But the logistics that go into owning a physical location is far too much for us to commit to at this point.

Once you open a physical restaurant, you’re married to it. The hours on your door and website are the hours you’re expected to be open. When you’re just starting out, that often means you can’t afford to hire management staff to run the business for you. In turn, you live at the restaurant. I don’t want to live at a restaurant, and neither do my wife and three kids.

Not to mention, the startup costs of a brick-and-mortar store dwarf the startup costs of a pop-up pizzeria or mobile food unit. I didn’t get very far down the path of looking into a fully kitted pizzeria at a physical location, but depending on the make and model, the deck oven alone can cost more than I’ve invested in our entire mobile setup.

One day …

Pop-ups Aren’t Simple

My original vision for Sips & Pies was to do something similar to Jeff Taylor’s Staglio Pizza with a pop-up tent, a few tables and a couple of table-top pizza ovens. I priced out everything I thought I’d need to mimic a pop-up like Taylor’s, and startup costs came in around $6,000. (Knowing what I know now about startup costs, it realistically would have been closer to $10,000 all-in.)

The initial startup cost and being able to pack everything into the back of a truck was attractive, and so I decided to call my local health department to figure out next steps. It took all of five minutes for the employee on the other end of the phone to crush my dreams. In Colorado, all mobile food units must be on wheels. More specifically, operators must use a trailer or a truck. So, what was supposed to be a quick call before I started buying equipment sent us back to the drawing board, and what was supposed to be a $6,000 investment quickly ballooned to $50,000 – or more. Ouch.

To be clear, not all municipalities have the same policy. Staglio Pizza, for example, is able to do frequent pop-ups in Carroll County, Maryland. I recommended calling your local health department and asking questions if this is the route you want to take.

After I hung up the phone, I thought, “Well, that was a fun idea and exercise.” I wanted to give up, and if I’m being honest, I did give up for a time. However, over the next few weeks, I slowly found myself browsing used food truck websites looking for inspiration – and a deal too good to pass up.

Why We ‘Settled’ for a Food Truck

If owning a brick-and-mortar restaurant means you’re married to the business, then owning a mobile pizzeria is like dating your business. At least, that’s what I assume dating is like. (I’ve been married for 18 years.) We can set up for service as often or as infrequently as we want, letting our kids’ activities schedule dictate our pizzeria schedule. If we don’t want to think about pizza for a few days or a week, we don’t have to.

Our wood-fired oven – complete with tent and tables – is very similar to the original vision for tent-based pop-ups. Only instead of tabletop ovens, we have a 48-inch oven on wheels. All told, we’ve invested over $40,000 – a big difference from the estimated $6,000 for a pop-up. (I’ll provide a more thorough tally in a future column.)

Moving beyond the flexibility of a mobile setup, the idea of being able to roam around our city and ingrain our business into the community remains super appealing. During our first service, a nearby business owner stopped by to introduce himself and ask how often we’d be in the area. He welcomed us to the neighborhood, and we’ve had a few other locals express the same sentiment. That’s exactly what I hope will happen, wherever and whenever we set up.

Outside of a typical service in parking lots, we’re able to offer a superior experience at private events. Instead of delivering 100 pizzas made in a wood-fired oven back at the restaurant, we can bring our restaurant – complete with our pizza oven – to your backyard or wedding reception and make each pizza to order.

While a food truck-like setup wasn’t the original vision, there isn’t a single part of me that feels like we should have figured out how to make pop-ups work or jumped into the deep end with a brick-and-mortar location.

JASON CIPRIANI is the owner of Sips & Pies, a mobile wood-fired pizzeria serving Neapolitan-inspired pizza, in Pueblo, Colorado.

The post Launching a Mobile Pizzeria: Brick and Mortar vs. Pop Up or Food Truck (Part 2) appeared first on Pizza Today.

On April 17, a lifelong dream of mine came true: I sold my first pizza. Actually, we sold 76 of them. It still doesn’t feel real. For the past two years, I’ve spent countless hours discussing, researching, dreaming, doubting, romanticizing and obsessing over what would ultimately become Sips & Pies – a mobile wood-fired pizzeria in Pueblo, Colorado, serving Neapolitan-inspired pizza – owned by my wife and myself.

The dream of owning a pizzeria started when I was in elementary school, after I spent a spring break working alongside my dad while he managed a local Pizza Hut. Not only did I love being able to eat all the pizza I wanted, but I vividly remember being fascinated by the process of making dough and how it ultimately transformed into pizza after a quick ride through the oven.

Jason Cipriani (Courtesy photo)

Then, of course, life happened. I grew up, got married, had kids and made a career for myself as a freelance technology journalist by testing, reviewing and reporting about tech products for a wide range of publications. Owning a pizzeria became nothing more than a fantasy. I didn’t want to be married to a brick-and-mortar location, and I had a job I truly loved.

All that changed when I had a Eureka! moment while eating leftover pizza I’d made in a tabletop pizza oven I was reviewing for Men’s Journal. The idea? Get a few portable pizza ovens, put them on a table underneath a tent and hold pop-up events. Easy peasy.

The Reality of Opening a Mobile Pizzeria

It wasn’t that easy, of course. The mere electrical requirements of running multiple pizza ovens was enough to send me back to the drawing board. Not to mention, during what turned out to be a very expensive phone call to the local health department, I learned that the table-and-tent idea wasn’t allowed in my county.

When I was younger, I worked in and around restaurants and catering. I even opened a drive-thru coffee shop when I was 20 years old, but my experience actually running a restaurant was very limited.

The journey to opening day has been long. To date, I’ve:

• Left my career in tech journalism partly to pursue my aspirations of opening a pizza business.
• Invested tens of thousands of dollars.
• Attended the International Pizza Expo (twice).
• Taken Siler Chapman’s class on opening a mobile pizzeria.
• Watched countless hours of YouTube videos.
• Bought a number of pizza-related books.
• Attended Wood Fired University.

I did all this in an effort to learn as much as I possibly could about a selling pizza anywhere I could park a truck or trailer. I can’t tell you how many times I considered giving up.

Mobile Pizzeria Decisions

Throughout the process, I’ve often joked with my wife that every time we make one decision, there are a million more waiting for us. It’s a joke that’s proved true time and time again, and it can be very overwhelming – to the point it’s paralyzing. Among those questions:

• Do I need to buy a truck and/or a trailer?
• What style of pizza should I serve?
• What about serving slices?
• What oven should I get?
• Where should I set up?
• Will I need a commissary?

In the coming weeks, I’m going to share my experience, detailing how we answered those questions, plus so many more. I’ll walk you through each major decision and milestone, along with our reasoning, mistakes and lessons learned.

Hopefully, by sharing my firsthand experience of turning a dream into a reality, I’ll help you avoid some of the same frustrations. I still can’t believe I own a pizzeria. Somebody pinch me!

JASON CIPRIANI is co-owner of Sips & Pies, a mobile wood-fired pizzeria serving Neapolitan-inspired pizza, in Colorado.

The post Launching a Mobile Pizzeria: Getting Started (Part 1) appeared first on Pizza Today.