Our Next Funding Drives:
We are currently operating 3 food trucks nationwide and starting up 3-5 veteran owned businesses every quarter!
"From Scratch" - starting up Chow in any city
We believe establishing Chow in a location can be as easy as “1, 2, 3.”
1) We need one certified kitchen facility. In Anne Arundel County, Maryland, we secured this through a generous in-kind donation by the First Presbyterian Church of Annapolis. Typical rental cost for parking ... Read More
Our Next Funding Drives:
We are currently operating 3 food trucks nationwide and starting up 3-5 veteran owned businesses every quarter!
"From Scratch" - starting up Chow in any city
We believe establishing Chow in a location can be as easy as “1, 2, 3.”
1) We need one certified kitchen facility. In Anne Arundel County, Maryland, we secured this through a generous in-kind donation by the First Presbyterian Church of Annapolis. Typical rental cost for parking and kitchen is $22,000 annually.
2) We now understand that the system is best operated with two full-time employees. This employee structure is outside of the 1099 contractors who are working the trucks as “Fellows” in the vocational training systems. The first employee would be an “operations assistant” in charge of recruiting veterans and military spouses, advertising, grant writing, and scheduling. The second employee would be an “executive director” of the food truck(s) and would function much like a restaurant manager. These employees would be paid between $40,000 and $55,000 in salary.
3) Chow also concludes, through 15 months of operations, that three vehicles are necessary to operate our system. Chow has purchased its first 18-foot food truck ($30,000), a 2001 Chevy Escort converted into a fully functioning and certified mobile food service facility. We also require a Ford Transit Cargo ($15,000) for pickup and delivery of food and a 22-foot food truck ($95,000) for higher capacity operations and to train more veterans and military spouses.
All in, this costs between $200,000 and $250,000 depending on cost of living, regulatory landscape, pre-existing infrastructure, and in-kind donations. The annual cost after this establishment is offset by the food truck sales to customers which cover most of the administrative and overhead expenses. Annually, we believe this social enterprise model can operate on $50,000 in grants and donations.
Funding another Food Truck
Our food trucks cost between $55K and 95K to build depending on make and model. This donation would add another food truck to any city where Let's Chow could expand to help as many as 15 veterans per year start businesses.
Brick-and-Mortar Hub
Let's Chow is seeking donors to purchase a building with a certified kitchen, office space, dine-in facilities, and food storage areas, which would be owned by the donors and Let's Chow would rent from those donors. Operations and funding are described in the attachment. We have completed a national search on the facility's location.
Hide Full Text
