Yesterday I decided that I was going to start a food truck.  I’ve had this idea floating around for a couple of weeks, but yesterday was the day I really decided that I was going to pursue this and make it happen.

Over the last few years I’ve come to realize that my current career path in IT isn’t what I am passionate about and it’s not what I see myself doing for the rest of my life.  I have always loved to cook, and grew up in a mix of cultures where cooking good food for your friends and family was a way of showing your love for them, and sharing that is something I want to do.  I’ve always loved working with my hands and making things, and it’s during those times that hours become minutes and I hardly notice the time passing.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I moved to Hamilton, and one of the main reasons we did it was that we had both been considering career changes, and the lower price of real estate here would make it easier for us to do that.  Since we moved in, my wife has gone back to school and started a new career as a realtor, and after 9 months, is doing very well and has found something that she loves doing.  It’s been inspirational to watch her take on something completely new and both do well at it, and enjoy it.  Now it’s my turn.

I am trying to be both positive and realistic in my approach to this.  I know how to cook, but I have no restaurant culinary experience.  There is a lot of research to do, and a lot of work to do to improve my skills and learn every aspect of the business.  It’s also going to take a lot of money, so I’ll be going into serious saving mode, which means I’ll be doing hardly any snowboarding this winter as I want to put as much away as I can to prepare for this venture.

Opening the truck is going to be a pretty long term goal.  I would like to open next summer, but my initial research is making it look like that’s a little out of reach financially.  So my goal for next summer is to do some pop up events and catering, and get some experience working in restaurants and in other food trucks.  Until then, I’ll be hard at work, improving my skills, learning, and developing recipes.  It’s going to be a long, hard, journey, but it’s something that I am committing myself to 100%, and will be writing about the whole process here as well.

As for what we’ll be serving on the truck?  That’s still being developed, but if you know me, you’ll know that bacon is bound to show up there somewhere!