We have been open for 3 weeks now. It took 3 different locations to finally get one that works. We even moved 100 feet the last time and business doubled. It took us 3 months to build the trailer a 24 foot with a 7 foot porch, inside we have two 40 lb fryers, a 36" flat top, a hatco 3 drawer warmer, a refridgerated sandwich prep station, and a freezer. We have a 48"w X 36"d X 72"h cabinet style smoker on the back porch. We also had to rent a restaurant for a commisary. It was slow getting started but now we are selling out every day. Best advise I could give with my lack of exrerience myself is don't try to move around to much at first, we have been at this last place for 2 weeks. The best sign you can have is lots of smoke rolling out of your smoker, even if you ain't cooking anything.
We didn't have much of a business plan just kinda fly by your pants, we had a lot of help from the girls at the health dept. They even helped us secure a varience on our cooker that was not NSF approved. We are still struggling with how much food to cook, we are cooking 2 cases of butts for tomorrow and 1/2 a case of chicken.
Try not to have much on the menu, the first couple of days we tried to do hamburgers and hot dogs and didn't sell but about 3 each. Now we only have bbq sandwiches, bbqq plates,and, chicken plates. We also do hand cut fries they are a lot better and about 1/2 the price of frozen.
Thanks, Jeff Therrell
Sweetfire BBQ
Lincolnton NC
828-493-5056