Top Shelf: Eat — Food trucks can springboard to brick-and-mortar locations

Jeff Coil is getting ready to celebrate the third anniversary of opening QDogs BBQ Company in Marion. But in reality his business has been around more than five years. For the first two years, QDogs was a food truck.

It made sense financially - the truck was a much smaller financial investment than a brick-and-mortar building. It allowed him to test his concept and the small business world before taking the full leap.

Sometimes he misses the food truck; he liked the flexible hours and the relative simplicity of keeping it running with just him and his son.

'I was pretty much a one man show in the food truck, and now I have 30 employees,” he said. 'There was a lot of learning curve to be the owner of a restaurant. Things like food ordering and getting a liquor license; there was a whole long list of things where I had no idea what I was doing.”

He used the truck to perfect his recipes, taking it to barbecue festivals around the region and slowly building up his brand.

'From a business perspective, this was the obvious next move, but I certainly do miss those days,” he said.

Moving to brick-and-mortar was also a good business decision for Jose Garcia, owner of La Regia in Iowa City. He and his wife noticed their La Michoacana food truck was attracting the same workers for lunch multiple times a week.

'We thought, if we have a brick-and-mortar, place, maybe they'll bring their families,” Garcia said. 'With the truck, we would see families with kids trying to eat in their cars.”

Now, those families come inside and eat, and business is booming - enough so that Garcia recently completed a remodel and expansion of the restaurant, adding more kitchen space and more seating.

'The truck is a little easier, but at the same time, I think my biggest pleasure of having the restaurant is seeing the families come in,” he said.

Chad Ginther is owner of Bigg Daddy's Dogs, a food cart that has served hot dogs on the corners of Second Street and Third Avenue SE since 2009. When he added a brick and mortar restaurant at 629 12th Ave. SE in 2013, he was fulfilling a longtime dream.

'The food cart set me up for that, getting my name out there, helping people get to know me,” he said.

It also gave him the means to save up the capital needed to invest in the brick-and-mortar location, which he was able to do without getting a bank loan. He had tried to get a loan, but found it difficult. When he started, his credit wasn't the best, he said, and small businesses, especially restaurants, often fail, making his pitch a hard sell.

The food cart, however, was successful enough, with very low overhead, to allow him to furnish his restaurant, one piece of equipment at a time. That equipment in turn has allowed him to expand his menu beyond hot dogs; he now serves things like gyros, Philly cheesesteaks and smoked brisket, and this summer he plans to serve smoked rib tips - one of the things he purchased was a meat smoker.

'As a hot dog vendor, I had to have prepackaged, precooked food. Now I smoke all my own meats. As much as I love the cart, I wouldn't get rid of that ability,” he said.

More space to cook also motivated Kelli Evans to make the brick-and-mortar jump. The owner of the The Grateful Crepe started with a food truck in August 2015, parking over the lunch hour in downtown Cedar Rapids. About a year later, she took her crepes indoors with a booth at NewBo City Market.

The move gave her more food preparation and storage space, which allows her to purchase in bulk. It also allows her to operate year-round, in weather fair and foul.

'Let's be honest, people don't want to stand out in 10 degree weather to wait for food,” she said.

The truck still goes out, for summer events and catering, and she plans to park it outside the market on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, days the market is closed. But simply parking downtown wasn't profitable for her, she said.

'I don't think we would ever want to have a traditional brick and mortar. That's not our business model,” she said. 'I still want to focus on the food truck; NewBo just gives us an extra presence.”

Burger and sandwich spot Saucy Focaccia also started with a food truck in March 2013 before moving into NewBo City Market a year later. Owner Paul Andreasen sold the truck to finance the move into the market.

'We saw an opportunity to expand our customer base and to be able to operate year-round,” he said.

The move paid off. A year ago, they opened a second, stand-alone location at the Fountains development.

Andreasen said the business owes a lot to its mobile beginnings.

'The food truck allowed us to test our concept without a huge financial risk,” he said. 'It gave us a start. It was kind of our origin story. It's sentimental, for sure.”

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