ALDEN, N.Y. — Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial kick-off to the summer season, which means you will be seeing a lot more food trucks popping up.
But have you ever wondered what goes into building a food truck?
"It's like everything that would be in your kitchen at home is really going on behind the scenes. All of the plumbing and all of the electric. All of that is hidden from the eye of the customer" said JP Food Trucks President PJ Azzarella.
JP Food Trucks opened in February. Nestled in Alden, it is one of the newest companies building and designing food trucks in the area.
"I've built over a hundred trucks," JP Food Trucks Vice President James Gutek said.
If you ever considered opening a food truck, you would first need to purchase a truck.
"It can be a school bus, it can be a box truck, really anything with an inside cavity where people can stand up in it can be converted into a food truck," Azzarella said.
The staff at JP Food Trucks has a simulator to determine what appliances and equipment are needed to make your special food in the truck.
"We start from scratch, sit down with them, do a design, and then from there, we build the truck," Gutek said.
A truck costs between $80,000 and $100,000 to create.
"Our first truck, full blown truck is getting ready to come off the line tomorrow," Azzarella said.
That truck is the fifth Lloyd's food truck, which will be debuting Friday.
Gutek is no stranger to Lloyd; he has built the majority of their food trucks. He says a standard food truck will take between six to eight weeks to construct.
The food truck concept blew up around 2010. Though the business style has become very popular over the years, the company hopes it's time for operators to invest in upgrading or building new trucks.
"Now we're going through this renaissance of where trucks are getting older and it's time to start turning them over and building new ones," Azzarella said.
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