Have you ever dreamed of starting your own restaurant?

You’ve picked out your name, the type of cuisine you want to serve, and the perfect location in that new food hall in the up-and-coming neighborhood in your city.

But there’s one problem: you have no experience running a restaurant, let alone a concession trailer. So, before you go all Top Chef, take a second to think about if you’re really ready for all the hard work and effort that goes into running a restaurant – especially if you’re a rookie.

3 Reasons You Should Open a Food Trailer Before a Restaurant

If you’re seriously thinking about starting your own dining establishment and you have little to no experience running a restaurant, you might be better suited to earn your chops with a food trailer.

Here are three reasons a food trailer probably makes more sense than a restaurant.

1. Your Food Trailer Will Have a Smaller Menu

If you don’t have experience running a food establishment, you could easily become overwhelmed coming up with unique offerings.

Rather than worrying about filling up a few menu pages with a variety of dishes suited for everyone, food trailer owners can get away with keeping it simple.

The perfect concession trailer menus are centered around one specific type of cuisine or food and have just a few options that aren’t too difficult to make – or eat. Your best bet is to focus on some sort of trendy food that’s easy to serve to a large audience.

2. Location, Location, Location

You’ll probably have at least one weekend where you park your food trailer in an area that just doesn’t get a lot of traffic. But if you have a concession trailer, you can easily pack up and move to another location.

If you invest in a brick-and-mortar restaurant, you’re kind of stuck. Maybe the area will pick up, or maybe it won’t, and you’ll be regretting your choice of location.

3. You Will Work Shorter Hours with Your Food Trailer

This is true – for the most part.

If you’re bringing your food trailer to a big weekend event, you’ll be working long and tiring days. But since you’ll be quickly breezing through patrons pretty much all day long, you could easily make enough money during your weekend that you can afford to take a few days off.

However, if you open a restaurant, you’ll be open almost every day, except for a few holidays throughout the year. If you’re lucky and your restaurant is profitable, you might be able to get away with closing on Mondays.

It’s Time to Get Cooking

It doesn’t matter if you decide to opt for a food trailer or take the plunge into the restaurant business. Your food establishment is going to be hard work.

Take a look at the time, effort, and money you realistically think you can give, and make the decision that’s best for you.