IndustriesFood truck
A food truck business plan a lender will actually underwrite
A truck is a restaurant with a smaller kitchen and a worse landlord: the rent is a commissary fee and a pitch fee, and the trading days are decided by a permit office and the weather. Plans get rejected here for assuming a seven-day week and a fixed location.
Written for an SBA or bank loan, which is where most plans in this sector goNAICS 722330
Where the money goes
Typical shares of revenue in this sector. Shown as a starting point to argue with, never as a target to hit — your own figures replace all of these at intake.
- Food and packaging
- 30%
- Higher than a fixed kitchen — smaller orders, more waste on a slow day.
- Labour
- 25%
- Two on the truck at service, plus prep. Owner-operator counts.
- Commissary and pitch fees
- 8%
- Most jurisdictions require a licensed commissary; pitches are bid or rented.
- Fuel, propane and maintenance
- 5%
- A truck is a vehicle. Budget a major repair, not an average.
A worked model
One plausible food truck, built out in full.
Not an illustration. These assumptions were run through the same engine the product uses, and the plan review was run over the result. It is here so you can see the shape of the answer before you start.
- Year 1 revenue
- $476.8K
- Year 3 revenue
- $614.2K
- Operating profit from
- Month 3
- Year 3 net margin
- 8.8%
- Coverage, first full year
- 2.55×EBITDA less tax, over debt service
Balance sheet ties in all 60 periodsNo blocking findings — this model would exportLowest cash $13.4K in month 1
The revenue build
Not a growth rate. These are the drivers a reader can argue with, which is the only kind worth putting in a plan.
Service window
Traffic × conversion × ticket
- Daily trafficPeople past the door, or covers seated
- 120
- ConversionShare who buy
- 100%
- Average ticket
- $14
- Open days per month
- 24
- Monthly growth
- 0.0%
- Cost of salesFood, drink or goods only
- 32%
Sixty months of it
Monthly revenue against monthly EBITDA. Both are flows, so they share an axis honestly — plotting a cumulative cash balance beside a monthly figure would flatten the one that matters. The cash trough is in the strip above.
- Monthly revenue
- Monthly EBITDA
Year by year
| Year | Revenue | EBITDA | Net income | Closing cash |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $476.8K | $34.4K | -$1.1K | $41.9K |
| Year 2 | $564.2K | $71.7K | $31.9K | $81.5K |
| Year 3 | $614.2K | $98.1K | $53.8K | $141.3K |
| Year 4 | $655.3K | $119.5K | $71.8K | $217.2K |
| Year 5 | $689.3K | $136.9K | $86.9K | $306.1K |
Sources and uses: $120K debt, $45K owner capital, $145K of fit-out and equipment. 4 people on the payroll by month 36.
Against the food truck band
Benchmarks warn; they never overwrite. An assumption outside the band is flagged with its source so you can justify it — substituting an industry median would destroy the specificity that makes a plan credible.
- Gross margin, before direct labour
- 68.0%in band
- 60.0%median 68.0%75.0%The published band is quoted on cost of goods alone, so this is the comparable figure. After direct labour the statements show 48.1%.
- Net margin
- 8.8%in band
- 4.0%median 10.0%18.0%
Source: Mobile food operator surveys, 2026 · NAICS 722330 · secondary tier. Secondary-tier bands are usable as ranges, not as something a lender will read; where a figure has to survive scrutiny we substitute RMA Annual Statement Studies or IRS SOI data. Carrying commissary and pitch fees instead of a lease is the whole economic argument, which is why the net band sits above the full-service restaurant's. Seasonality is correspondingly harsher.
What they will ask first
A plan that answers these before they are asked reads as competent. One that does not gets sent back with them attached.
- How many days a month do you actually trade?
- Not thirty. Permits, weather, events and vehicle downtime take days out. A plan showing twenty-two to twenty-six trading days reads as written by someone who has done it.
- What happens when the pitch goes away?
- A single high-performing location is a concentration risk. A reader wants a second and third pitch named, or a catering line that does not depend on one.
Where these plans get sent back
Permit dependency
Pitches and permits are annual and competitive. Losing one mid-year is the most common reason a truck's year two misses.
Seasonality is not smoothed
A truck in a four-season city can do half its annual revenue in four months. A flat monthly model will not survive a first read.
Licences and filings to budget for
These belong in the use of funds, not in a footnote. A missing permit line is the cheapest possible reason to be sent back.
- Mobile food vendor permit, renewed annually in most jurisdictions
- Commissary agreement — many health departments will not license a truck without one
- Food handler certification for every person on the truck
- Fire suppression inspection for the cooking line
Requirements vary by state, county and city, and they change. Treat this as the list to go and verify locally rather than as legal advice — the product tracks the dated ones as configuration with a source and an effective date, and prints which version it assumed.
Start from these defaults, then make them yours.
The intake pre-fills this sector’s drivers and tags each one as your figure or an industry default — and says which in the finished plan.