Winter is a tough time of year for a food truck fan living in the colder regions of the country. As I mentioned last time, I live in the Twin Cities. Today it’s a balmy 11 degrees, but yesterday dropped down to -8, and all my favorite food trucks have parked themselves for the season or switched exclusively to event catering.
Or have they? Curious to see how they handled their winter shutdown, I started digging, and I found many of my favorite food trucks—sans trucks—in operation. Some are offering their famous sandwiches and salads in local coffee shops or partnering with local breweries, while others team up with existing restaurants to offer a “pop-up kitchen” over the winter months. And a few brave souls just keep going in spite of the weather.
I was pleasantly surprised to see how many of my local favorites I could still find. If you and your truck have come up with a clever way to keep your business going in spite of the cold, you have an excellent opportunity to solicit local media coverage. Reach out to your local paper’s food or entertainment columnists or the tv news station’s human interest reporter, and invite them down to see how you’re weathering the cold.
The bread and butter for these journalists is novelty, and so if you can show them:
- how you’re taking a normal thing (a food truck business—already interesting)
- and operating it differently (partnering with the local ice cream shop)
- to weather tough circumstances (the cold),
you’ve made their job easy for them.
Leave us a comment and tell us the creative ways you’re keeping your business going through the winter!
#FoodTruckFan posts are by Mindy Holahan.
Photo by Unhindered by Talent
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About the Author
Mindy Holahan is a staff writer and the #FoodTruckFan columnist. Indeed, she’s a big ole fan of food trucks, particularly if they sell fish tacos. She has a background in the hospitality industry, loves working with writers, and gets positively giddy about the intersection between cooking and science. Follow her on Twitter @HolaMindy for daily bouts of enthusiasm or on Instagram @HolaMindy for her adventures and epic failures in gluten-free baking.
