For many, hitting the road in a food truck is only a means to parking the business in a more sedentary brick-and-mortar location.


But those who have traveled that route say it’s not quite that easy. While a food truck can help a restaurateur test a brand and its menu, it does not eliminate the potholes operators will encounter in a stationary location.


Still, it can be instructive when it comes to understanding guests, maintaining focus and conquering operational limitations. Here, some entrepreneurs that blazed the food-truck trail in Los Angeles and New York share what they have learned on the path to restaurant ownership.


Focus on the food


Roy Choi’s Kogi BBQ truck concept in Los Angeles has become the inspiration for many who start a mobile business. Choi has five trucks dishing out Korean-Mexican tacos and burritos, as well as three brick-and-mortar restaurants in Los Angeles: Chego, his first; A-frame, a partnership with David Reiss; and Alibi Room, a bar owned by Reiss where the Kogi truck menu is served by Choi’s team.


A classically trained chef who had years of experience in high-end hotels, Choi said opening Chego was easy. 


“It was like kung fu,” he said. “Everything just flowed naturally.”


Still, he said, his time on the road has given him a new perspective. After working the streets on a truck, he said, “everything was so much richer, because I had that connection with the people. It was really liberating.”


The key benefit of operating the truck concept was knowing “how to take away all the layers and crap and trusting in the product,” Choi said.


When he opened Chego in April 2010, Choi designed the concept as something entirely different from Kogi, but with the same “simplified to the bone” focus on quality. Chego features a fast-casual menu of innovative Asian-inspired bowls with high-end ingredients like Kurobuta pork belly and prime rib. 


Choi decided not to let himself be distracted by the thousands of details that go into opening a restaurant, from decisions about glassware to whether or not to hire a host or set up a reservation line. The restaurant serves no alcohol.


“We just focused on the food,” he said. “The No. 1 thing should be the food. From there, everything else should fall into place.”


Now Choi is thinking about launching a Chego truck. While the restaurant just breaks even, Choi said, it benefits the Kogi 
operation from a purchasing standpoint and serves as a prep kitchen.


“It’s an amenity for the whole company,” Choi said. “We do it for the people.”


Stay connected


High-end pastry chefs Jerome Chang, Vincent Jaoura and Susana Garcia, who met while working at Le Cirque, launched DessertTruck in New York in 2007 with the goal of simplicity in mind.


According to Garcia, they wanted to offer desserts that were “very simple and appealing. Coming from Le Cirque, we really had to minimalize — to shift from making really complicated desserts to something very simple.”


The crew also went from living the life of cloistered pastry chefs to having daily contact with those who enjoy their creations.


“Working on the truck allowed us to have that connection with people,” said Garcia. “You get to meet lots of fun, loving customers.”


When they opened their restaurant last year, called DessertTruck Works, the temptation was to 
return to the complicated specialty desserts they knew how to produce. But they quickly learned from their guests that so-called “fancy” desserts had little appeal, said Garcia. 


So they decided to keep the menu for the 1,200-square-foot restaurant essentially the same as the truck’s menu, which includes such simpler options as chocolate bread pudding with a choice of vanilla or bacon custard sauce, and warm brioche doughnut squares with Nutella or vanilla cream filling.


They also realized that their truck played a role in their brand acceptance. Just before the restaurant opened, the group temporarily stopped operating the truck because of a permit problem. While the break allowed them to focus on the restaurant, it also 
reinforced the truck’s importance in driving business.


“The truck had gotten a lot of press when we started, but with the store there wasn’t really any press,” Garcia said. “It was like people kind of forgot about us. It felt like we were starting from scratch.”


Evolve judiciously


If you have a successful menu on a truck, should you offer the same items in your restaurant? Operators disagree on this point.


After the 2009 launch of the CupcakeStop truck, which brought exotic cupcakes to the streets of Manhattan, concept founder Lev Ekster opened a store with the same name in Greenwich Village.


A few months later, however, Ekster sold his interest to one of the concept’s investors, Richard Kallman. And recently, Kallman temporarily closed the CupcakeStop shop to rework the concept into a cafe that offers a broader menu.


“We learned our lesson that you have to have a broader range of product,” said Kallman. “The market is so saturated with cupcakes.”


In Los Angeles, however, Erwin Tjahyadi, co-founder and 
executive chef of the Komodo truck and restaurant, had a different experience.


After operating trucks featuring French-Asian-inspired tacos and burritos for about two years, Tjahyadi opened a tiny 15-seat Komodo restaurant outlet near Beverly Hills earlier this year.


Rather than paying rent for commissary space, he decided to lease the restaurant, where he also can build his growing catering business and do prep work for the trucks.


Tjahyadi, who cooked previously at the Hotel Bel-Air, said his dream is to eventually open a bistro. He has been patiently working toward that goal.


Initially, the restaurant offered dishes that moved closer to a bistro menu, like roasted chicken and filet mignon, but were affordable, he said.


“But people kept coming in and saying, ‘Where are the tacos and burritos?’” said Tjahyadi. “So after about two weeks we changed to the truck menu.”


Prices are also about the same, and Tjahyadi is still figuring out how to make the menu work, given his higher overhead costs. 


“Street food is cheap and filling,” he said. “It’s difficult to have the same food for a sit-down restaurant.”


Higher expectations


Joe Kim, the owner of the Flying Pig Truck in Los Angeles, is scheduled to open his first restaurant at the end of June. 


Even before the opening, however, Kim said it’s clear that operating a restaurant will require more focus.


“When you’re operating a restaurant, even if you’re doing well, you have to constantly pay attention,” he said. “People expect better service and better quality at a restaurant.”


The Flying Pig Cafe will feature the Asian-and-Pacific Rim-fusion cuisine of the truck, but with a larger menu. The 1,500-square-foot venue in downtown Los Angeles will have about 75 seats, including a patio, and will serve beer and wine.


The average check will range from $15 to $20 for the small-plates-style menu. Dishes from the truck menu — such as the Belly Bun, braised pork belly, cucumber, red onion and “death sauce” with a steamed rice bun — will be served in slightly larger portions in the cafe for about 50 cents more, said Kim. 


One benefit of starting his concept with a truck is the more than 7,500 followers on Twitter who Kim said are now excited about coming to the restaurant. 


“We have more confidence,” he said.


Think beyond the walls 


Pavlos Sierros, co-owner of the Greek-street-food-themed Souvlaki Gr truck and shop in New York, said if there’s one thing he learned from operating his trucks it’s how to cook in a very small kitchen.


“If I had never opened a food truck, the kitchen in my restaurant would have been three times bigger,” he said of the restaurant he opened earlier this year. “But you realize how much you can do in a smaller space.” 


Souvlaki Gr’s wheel-less home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side has a kitchen about the same size as that of his truck, he said. The 50-seat restaurant’s menu is also about the same, with two or three more items than what is available on the truck.


Prices are slightly higher in the restaurant for the same portion, though, because of overhead costs, he said. Souvlaki with pita bread costs $3.50 from the truck but $4.50 in the restaurant.


Sierros noted the restaurant can do four times the business of the truck because of the stationary gas line. Trucks are only allowed to carry a certain amount of propane for the grill, which he said was limiting.


Sierros, who is planning to open a second location of the restaurant in New York’s financial district in August, said he has found running a fixed location much easier than operating a mobile concept.


“On a truck, everything that can go wrong does,” said Sierros, whose truck last year won a New York Vendy Award, designed to honor the city’s best street food.


“People come and ask me for advice, and I tell them don’t get into the truck business,” he said. “Even now, when I see my truck my blood pressure goes up.” 


Keep your swagger


Choi of the Kogi truck, however, said he finds the pressures and problems of a brick-and-mortar venue far exceed those of a truck.


With a restaurant, he said, it’s easy to get bogged down by responsibilities, “but that shouldn’t be the guest’s burden. Don’t let that affect your culture.”


The food-truck movement has been fueled in part by the reckless spirit of the entrepreneurs who were willing to take risks.


“On a truck, you go out every day like the world is your oyster and you’re going to attack it,” said Choi. “You need to keep that same free energy” with a restaurant, despite the daily pressures. 


“We still have our own swagger. We still give it the way we think you would enjoy it.”

Contact Lisa Jennings at lisa.jennings@penton.com.