Quote:
Originally Posted by awilder
Gotcha, thanks!
But doesn’t the ice cream business require a lot of heavy equipment?..
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Sometimes, but an ice cream wagon can be as simple as a cooler on wheels that a guy pushes along the sidewalk. Its just refrigeration and maybe a soft serve or small appliance-type machines to prepare higher end product. They tend to be pretty simple, and a
very old idea.
Most food trucks are different. You need refrigeration for raw, sometimes very perishable, sensitive stuff (meats,) maybe frozen stuff, too. Then you need cooking, maybe baking as well, exhaust, a sink to clean up, water and waste tanks, storage for all that inventory and equipment, etc. etc. Much more involved, generally. Coffee and ice cream are relatively trivial. Bagels and hot pretzels even easier than that. I used to buy a cheap bagel and cream cheese every day in downtown Manhattan from a guy who mounted an old phone booth to a small utility trailer. His wife would drive buy every hour or so to resupply the inventory, and by 10am they were hooking it back to the car and gone. Ingenious...
Quote:
Originally Posted by awilder
I hear step vans have gone up in price because of the food truck business.
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I kinda doubt it. The food truck business is a tiny fraction of the step van market. The foodies put so much money into them that they don't buy clapped out 15 year old vans to start with anyway, and they are competing with FedEx partners and local delivery companies for nicer, newer ones. Those guys make more money with those vans than any food truck, and have no problem paying top dollar for them.
I have been looking for at 18-20' step vans for a while to convert into a solo stealth machine for myself when I don't have my girls with me. These trucks retain their value because they are super versatile and serve many money-making activities for lots of purposes. Even 25 year old ones are $10k if they are nice and road ready. There's also a substantial industry reconditioning step vans on spec and selling them refurbished, too. Good ones will always be worth real money to those who can
make money with them, so step vans don't fall off the table in value the way less versatile vehicles like buses do- and they never have. The food truck guys are one small part of that, for sure, but those in delivery, maintenance, and many, many trades vastly outnumber them. That's why a good used step van is worth double or triple the equivalent size bus.
I would take a 12-14' step van over a 5-6 window short bus every day of the year- its wider, taller inside, easier to build out, carries and tows more, mounts more solar, and on and on. Versatility. Mostly, though, for me it would be the stealth factor above and beyond the vehicular advantages. I would want it to travel around urban and suburban areas mostly east of the Mississippi.
A refrigerator white short step van disappears into that kind of street environment better that any other vehicle, IMHO, especially if you really try to keep it low profile, which is also easier with a step van than anything else. Even the longer one I want for myself, my toys and tools (18" is the sweet spot there) would go largely to completely unnoticed where I would use it. Such stealth is hugely valuable to me, and worth the difference in step van cost over a bus on that basis alone...