Coffee Studies
Coffee Business

Coffee Truck Business: What It Costs, What It Earns

By Coffee Studies Editorial·Published October 30, 2026·27 min read

Quick answer

A published coffee trailer starts at $21,000.00 and runs to "Buildouts starting at $100k", and most builders publish no price at all. Once the kit is paid for, our own sum puts break-even near nine cups a day at five dollars a cup. Nobody publishes real earnings. Travelin' Tom's Coffee runs more than 250 trucks and discloses no franchisee earnings in Item 19 of its 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document. The biggest lever on cost is whether a regulator calls your unit a coffee unit or a kitchen. British Columbia lets a mobile unit dispensing plain tea and coffee operate with no hand sink and no warewashing sinks. King County charges an espresso-only mobile unit $630 a year and $1,008 the moment it grills a sandwich. All read 30 October 2026.
A small unbranded white vending trailer with its serving hatch propped open and a plain awning, parked on gravel at the edge of a park in early morning light

Once the kit is paid for, our sum puts break-even near nine cups a day. That nine-cup figure is ours, not an industry claim. We show the whole sum in the first section below.

Every page that ranks for this question prints three numbers. A monthly revenue figure. A cups-per-day figure. A margin. Not one of them is sourced.

So we worked the other way round. We read the regulations and the fee schedules on 30 October 2026. Several of them draw the coffee line in writing. Two name coffee while they draw it. The line runs to sinks, water tanks, fire permits and hundreds of dollars a year.

One decision moves every other number on this page. It is whether a regulator calls your unit a coffee unit or a kitchen. A coffee unit can mean no sinks, a smaller water tank, no fire permit, and hundreds of dollars a year less.

Where we could not retrieve a figure, we say so. We do not fill the gap.

About nine cups a day

what our own arithmetic makes the break-even, once a trailer, a machine, a generator, a licence, a commissary, insurance and a stall are paid for. Ours, not an industry claim, and the whole sum is on this page[64]

250 trucks, no earnings

the largest mobile coffee franchise in the United States runs more than 250 trucks in 36 states, files a Franchise Disclosure Document, may publish a financial performance representation, and publishes none[1]

$630, then $1,008

what King County charges a mobile unit serving only espresso, and what the same unit pays the moment it grills a sandwich on board, both read 30 October 2026[3]

Does a coffee truck actually make money?

Some do, and two documents prove more than everything else written on it. One operator's published accounts, and our own sum from published prices.

Break-even is near nine cups a day

Everything here is our arithmetic, from inputs with a published price and a date. All US dollars, all read 30 October 2026.

Start with one drink. Our packaging, coffee and milk come to $0.859825.

At five dollars a cup, that leaves $4.140175. Five dollars is the price one operator published charging at a festival.

Two of our three inputs rest on an assumption of ours, not a supplier's.

Every input, its published price and our assumptions

A 12 oz paper hot cup is published at "$0.05 / Each" in a case of 1,000 [73], its travel lid at "$0.03 / Each" [74] and a kraft sleeve at "$0.03 / Each" [75], so our addition puts packaging at $0.11.

A roaster publishes its espresso blend at "From $12.33 lb" in a 5 lb bag [76]; at 18 grams per double shot, our assumption and not the roaster's, our arithmetic gets 25 doubles from a pound and $0.4932 of coffee into a drink.

Milk is the weakest input: the only dated figure we hold is the US Bureau of Labor Statistics average retail price for whole milk, 4.106 per gallon for September 2026, a retail price and not a foodservice case price [77]; at 8 fluid ounces a drink, our assumption again, that is $0.256625.

Our total is $0.859825 per drink. At five dollars a cup, the price that operator published charging at a festival, our arithmetic leaves $4.140175 of contribution.

Line, each figure published and each five-year spread our assumptionAnnual cost, our arithmetic
Coffee trailer, "Espresso - Ivory + Cedar" at $21,000.00 [22]$4,200.00
Espresso machine, a cart-marketed two-group at $7,480.00; the page also shows $8,000.00 [63]$1,496.00
Generator, Honda EU3000iS at $2,399 [58]$479.80
Texas Type II licence: $618 application, $400 pre-licensing inspection, one $400 routine inspection [8]$1,418.00
Commissary, Austin annual rate [5]$720.00
Insurance, "$299 annually" [78]$299.00
Seasonal stall, prepared foods and food trucks [79]$1,000.00
Our total$9,612.80

Divide our $9,612.80 by our $4.140175 of contribution. The answer is 2,321.83 cups a year.

Spread that over 245 trading days and our arithmetic makes 9.48 cups a day. The 245 days are the 49 weeks at five days a week the London operator published as his own pattern.

That is the point, and it is not a promise of profit. A trailer, a machine, a generator, a state licence, a commissary, insurance and a market stall are all paid for here, from published prices. Fewer than ten cups a day covers them.

Four things are missing on purpose. Your own wages. Staff wages. Generator fuel. The tow vehicle. We hold no dated published figure for any of them.

So a published threshold of 100 cups on a weekday does not contradict a break-even under ten. Break-even pays the kit. The other ninety cups pay the person.

The cups-a-day quotes in full, and where they come from

The same operator published the threshold the trade press has quoted ever since, and he marks it as his own view with the words "I'd suggest".

"I'd suggest that a single-barista coffee truck needs to sell 100+ cups per day on a weekday, and 150+ cups on a weekend to be viable, plus other retail sales." The words "I'd suggest" mark it as a named operator's opinion.

[64]

One American figure sits beside it. Vincent LaVolpa of Green Joe Coffee School publishes a monthly range for his own trailer, "On average, I see about $6,000 - $9,000 a month on the coffee trailer with 30-40 hours of work a week" [71], and separately a single festival day in full, "$6,770" gross on "1354 cups" at five dollars each, less "25% - Concession Cost". [72] He sells a coffee truck course, which argues for caution. His average sits below the blog consensus, which argues the other way.

One operator published his accounts

Dear Coco Street Coffee traded a London street pitch for 49 weeks, five days a week, in 2022. Amounts in pounds sterling, percentages as printed, compared to nothing in dollars.

Line, as publishedPoundsPercent of total revenue
Total Sales£144,560
Pitch Fees (Rent)£1,100under 1%
Business Rates£00%
Wages£27,50019%
Utilities£1,5601%
Coffee Costs£18,79213%
Bakes Costs£10,1197%
Milk Costs£4,3363%
Disposables£4,5503%
Miscellaneous Costs£1,3311%
Value Added Tax (VAT)£17,34712%
Net Profit£57,92540%

Three notes on that table. It is one operator's own business, not evidence about the category. The statement is published as an image, so every figure above is a visual transcription.

And the article's own account of the trading pattern conflicts with the header on the statement.

The conflict in the trading pattern

The article's own description of the trading pattern, "operating 3 days a week", conflicts with the statement's header, "49 weeks, 5 days a week".

[64]

Nobody publishes what a coffee truck owner earns

Begin with the silence. The operator with more than 250 trucks will not say.

Travelin' Tom's Coffee runs more than 250 trucks in 36 states. It files a Franchise Disclosure Document under federal rules. It discloses no franchisee earnings in Item 19 of it.

Every blog knows what a coffee truck makes a month. The operator with 250 of them, writing under federal disclosure rules, declines to say.

The exact wording of the silence, and where it comes from

"Travelin' Tom's Coffee does not disclose specific franchisee earnings in Item 19 of its 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document", on a system of "more than 250 Travelin' Tom's trucks ... in 36 states". A franchisor files that document under federal rules and is permitted to publish a financial performance representation in Item 19 of it.

[1]

The monthly figures that do circulate trace to one uncited sentence. It sits between a sentence citing Grand View Research and a sentence citing Verified Market Research. From there it propagates verbatim.

Google's AI Overview credits its own monthly figure to three publishers, and two of them do not carry it. The margin claim is worse. We print the 15 to 35 percent figure as unverified, because no coffee truck page we found carries it.

One page does claim a coffee truck margin of 15 to 20 percent net profit. It then prints a worked example on the same page that contradicts it. Both cannot be right.

The claim, and what each credited page actually says

Google's AI Overview credits its "$6,000 to $21,000+ per month, selling roughly 200 to 300 cups a day" to three publishers, and two do not carry it.

Perfect Daily Grind's coffee truck article contains no such figure: every monetary or percentage number on it is £40,000, $49,900, 40 percent, 5 percent, 10 percent and 18 percent. [65]

Texas Coffee School publishes startup ranges only, with no monthly revenue and no cups-per-day figure. [66]

The only Prima page on mobile coffee economics is a cart owner interview with no revenue, cups or margin figure at all.

[67]
The uncited sentence, and every page that carried it on

The sentence, verbatim: "A successful coffee truck can generate between $14,000 and $21,000 in monthly revenue and sell between 200 and 300 cups of coffee per day." The sentence before cites Grand View Research. The sentence after cites Verified Market Research. The claim itself carries no citation and borrows its neighbours' authority. [1]

From there it propagates verbatim and unsourced [68], and once into euros on a page whose "low traffic" and "average rural" rows carry the identical range. [69] That is what happens when a table is generated rather than observed.

The "15% to 35%" margin is worse: we found no coffee truck page carrying it at all, so we print it as unverified. The one page that does claim a coffee truck margin, "15% to 20% net profit", publishes a worked example on the same page leaving $4,450 on $10,000 of revenue.

[70]

What does it cost to get started?

Most builders will not tell you a price. That is the finding, and it is the industry's normal state.

What a coffee unit costs, new and used

We checked six concession trailer builders on 30 October 2026. Two publish a price list. One publishes a single model price. One publishes in-stock prices with no coffee build among them. Two publish nothing at all.

The builders we checked, and what their pages showed

Six concession trailer builders, read 30 October 2026.

[21][23][26]

One publishes a page titled "Concession Packages and Pricing" inviting you to "compare our package pricing with other builders". All nine packages on it read "Contact Us for Quote". [25]

The Ontario builder most visible in search publishes a booking deposit and a payment schedule, and no price.

[27]

Five sellers do publish a number. US dollars, read 30 October 2026.

Unit, as the seller names itPublished price
Cedar Trailer Co., "Espresso - Ivory + Cedar", 12 feet, espresso machine not included [22]$21,000.00
Eastcoast Concessions, "the 14-foot Arabica, our standard coffee build" [24]$31,900
Hudson Trailer Company, 14' Mobile Coffee Shop Trailer [29]$46,000, or "$60k-$78k" complete
Concession Nation, 14 ft. truck conversion, "Step Van is not included." [21]$47,000
Legion Food Trucks, its entire published pricing [28]"Buildouts starting at $100k."

One of those five does not settle. Eastcoast publishes three different figures on one page. We print all three and resolve nothing.

The three figures on the same Eastcoast page

Eastcoast Concessions lists "the 14-foot Arabica, our standard coffee build" at $31,900. The same page also carries "Starting at $15,990" and "Most coffee trailers we build are $45,000-$75,000". We report that unresolved.

[24]

Where the new market hides a price, the used market prints one. Asking prices as displayed on 30 October 2026, US dollars.

Listing, verbatimAskingState
2010 Beverage and Coffee Concession Trailer [30]$19,040OH
2021 7' x 16' Coffee and Beverage Trailer w/ 2025 Buildout$33,000NC
2026 13' Coffee/Espresso and Beverage Trailer$71,500TN
2020 Ford Transit Coffee/Espresso Van, 75,712 miles [31]$60,500ID
Turnkey 2003 Ford Coffee and Espresso Truck, 130,000 miles on the body$76,890AZ

A 2003 unit with 130,000 miles asks more than a 2020 van with 75,712. Here the build carries the price, not the chassis.

[31]

Canada is harder to price, and the problem is the currency label, not the supply. Canadian listings on the main US marketplace are marked USD, not Canadian dollars. One Ontario marketplace prints a bare dollar sign, so we print its two prices unlabelled.

The Canadian listings, and how each page labels its money

Canadian listings on the main US marketplace carry an explicit "USD" suffix, from $20,160 USD to $82,500 USD, so they are not Canadian dollar figures although the units sit in Canada.

[32]

An Ontario marketplace lists a Toronto coffee truck at $ 300,000 and a Welland food trailer at $ 35,000 with no currency marker on the page, so we print them unlabelled. [33]

One seller publishes both: "Fully equipped from $15,850 USD ($22,500 CAD before tax)", which lets us quote both and convert neither.

[34]

Which format fits you

What separates the formats is what each one obliges you to have. Pick yours and read only your own lines.

Your situation

Which format are you weighing up?

A cart is the cheapest thing to move and the easiest to place, but something else has to carry it.

Tow vehicle
A van or a trailer to move it
Driving licence
Ordinary
Commissary and power
Usually a commissary. A socket or a battery for power
Where it can stand
Sidewalk and indoor pitches a vehicle cannot reach
The licence lines are the two published class definitions we could read, not a national rule.
Where the two licence lines come from

Ontario: the Ministry of Transportation handbook on towing, which sets class G to 4,600 kilograms gross trailer weight and requires brakes at 1,360.

[35]

California: the DMV licence classes page, on which class C tows one vehicle of 10,000 lbs GVWR or less. What a commercial food trailer needs is not stated on the page we read. [36]

Both read 30 October 2026.

Our sibling page prices a cart build and works its arithmetic line by line, and that question stays there. Weighing a truck against four walls instead is the cost to open a coffee shop.

The one decision that cuts your costs

Often your unit is not a food truck at all. Six places publish a lighter class, and two of them name coffee.

A food truck is treated as a kitchen on wheels. Plain coffee often is not. The lighter class can drop your sinks, shrink your tank, or skip your fire permit.

Plain coffee is not treated like a kitchen

In British Columbia, a unit that sells only pre-packaged food, plain tea and plain coffee needs no hand sink. It needs no wash sinks either. You just need the health authority to approve it.

Start making specialty drinks and that changes. Now you need a permit, a hand sink, two wash sinks, and 36 L of clean water on board.

This one difference is most of what a trailer build costs.

The exact wording, and where it comes from

BC Centre for Disease Control, Mobile Food Premises Guidelines, July 2024. Type A covers units that "only dispense pre-packaged foods, plain tea and coffee, pre-packaged sandwiches" and "Do not require a hand sink or ware washing sinks". They need "approval from the local Health Authority". Type B covers "specialty coffee" and requires the permit, the handwashing sink, two warewashing sinks and 36 L of potable water. [2]

Type A pays no permit fee. Type B and Type C pay $75.00.

[15][16]

Read 30 October 2026.

The lighter class where you will operate

Pick your place and read only your own lines. Each of these is a class a coffee unit can sit in, and each saves you something different.

Your situation

Where will your unit operate?

Sell only plain tea and plain coffee and you need no hand sink and no wash sinks. You just need the health authority to approve the unit.

Who gets the lighter class
Units that only sell pre-packaged food, plain tea and plain coffee, and pre-packaged sandwiches
What it saves you
The hand sink and the wash sinks
Permit fee
Type A pays nothing. Type B and Type C pay $75.00Read 30 October 2026.
The catch
Specialty coffee moves you to Type B: a permit, a hand sink, two wash sinks and 36 L of potable water
Six jurisdictions, all read 30 October 2026. The verbatim wording of each class, and the citation for it, is in the proof blocks on this page.
The exact wording of the other five, and where each comes from

Washington: the commissary exemption, RCW 43.20.148. The verb is "must": the authority "must approve a request" meeting nine conditions.

[6]

Texas: the Central Preparation Facility exemption, printed as an inspector's checklist of eight items. The form ends "CPF Exemption: Granted / NOT GRANTED".

[9]

Ontario: O. Reg. 493/17 s. 4(2), premises selling "only pre-packaged or non-hazardous food". What it saves is the separate potable and waste tanks, and the readable gauge on each. [11]

California: "limited food preparation" covers "preparing BEVERAGEs that are for immediate service, in response to an individual consumer order, that do not contain frozen milk products". The tank drops from "at least 25 gallons" to "At least 15 gallons". [12]

Austin, Texas: "Fire permits are not required for MFV units that do not have propane and do not have cooking equipment (i.e, those that serve ice cream, coffee, etc.)". What it saves is the fire permit and its $222 inspection fee. [13]

All read 30 October 2026.

Austin's line rewards a second read. Its conjunction is a build decision: no propane and no cooking equipment. Both have to be true. A trailer with a propane water heater has propane. It is back inside the permit although it cooks nothing.

Ontario leaves the coffee question open, and we are not going to close it for you. The exemption is real and quoted above.

What we could not find out about this

No Ontario regulation, guidance or public health document we could open says whether brewed coffee, or a coffee drink containing dairy, falls inside the s. 4(2) exemption. That determination belongs to the local medical officer of health, and we found nobody making it in writing.

[11]

Where coffee is named to charge you more

Here coffee is named to charge you, not to let you off.

Texas charges a Type II coffee truck $618 to apply, plus a $400 pre-licensing inspection fee. Los Angeles County prints a coffee cart at $299 a year and a beverage truck at $598. King County fixes an espresso-only mobile unit at its lowest risk category by name.

One Texas trap kills a popular build. Taps that face the customer are not licensable there at all. A kegged cold brew trailer is out.

The fee schedules and code these come from

Texas puts "Coffee trucks" in its Type II definition, at $618 to apply plus a $400 pre-licensing inspection fee, against $309 and no inspection fee for a Type I prepackaged unit. [8]

Los Angeles County prints "coffee cart" at $299 a year and "beverage truck" at $598. [17]

King County fixes "Any mobile food establishment serving only espresso or hot dogs or both, with no other food preparation" at Risk Category 1 by name, and moves anything "grilling sandwiches or toast" to Risk 2.

[4]

Texas DSHS lists motorised vehicles "with outward-facing beverage taps" among vehicles "not designed to be licensed as an MFV", so a kegged cold brew trailer with customer-facing taps is not licensable there at all.

[10]

All read 30 October 2026.

Sinks, tanks, water, a commissary and an extinguisher. The numbers move with the border, so a trailer legal in one place is not legal in another.

Sinks, tanks, water and fire

Your waste tank must be bigger than your fresh tank, and each place picks its own number. That is why this table decides whether a trailer bought in one state is legal in another.

JurisdictionWaste tank must exceed the fresh tank by
FDA Food Code 2022, § 5-401.11(A) [20]"Sized 15 percent larger in capacity than the water supply tank"
Washington, WAC 246-215-09135(6) [7]"at least fifteen percent more capacity than the water supply tank"
Texas, DSHS checklist item 1 [9]"at least 15% larger than the potable water storage tank"
British Columbia, BCCDC [2]"25% larger than the capacity of the potable water tank"
California, § 114240 [12]"50 percent greater than the POTABLE WATER tanks", never under 7.5 gallons, plus "at least 15 percent of the water supply" where water is supplied for beverage preparation, plus "one-third of the volume of the ice cabinet" where ice is used

A trailer built to the Food Code's 15 percent cannot be used in California or British Columbia. Read the California row again, too. Both of its extra clauses are aimed at exactly a coffee unit.

On sinks the rule is a general one with a drinks carve-out. A coffee unit lives in that carve-out. Washington and California both want five gallons for handwashing. British Columbia sets a litre figure instead. Texas publishes no minimum at all.

The exact sink and water wording, and where each comes from

Washington sets five gallons minimum for handwashing, a hand sink "within 25 feet" of food preparation and toilets "within 500 feet" once you are in one spot over an hour, against 200 feet for fixed premises. It requires three sink compartments "when utensils are reused on the mobile food unit" and lets the authority waive that where the operation "Includes limited food preparation", a phrase nowhere defined in that chapter. [7]

California sets five gallons for handwashing plus 15 gallons for limited food preparation, lets an unenclosed unit preparing potentially hazardous beverages to order run a one-compartment sink with an integral metal drainboard and warewashing "in a reasonable proximity", and exempts "the bulk dispensing of nonPOTENTIALLY HAZARDOUS BEVERAGEs" from its handwashing section.

[12]

British Columbia sets 36 L for Type A and B and 130 L for Type C.

[2]

Texas publishes no minimum gallonage at all: its checklist prints "Size:______ gallons" as a blank and fixes only the 15 percent relationship.

[9]

California regulates coffee urns by name. It is the only coffee-specific equipment rule we found in US retail food law. An espresso machine is a heating element. So a California coffee unit owes an extinguisher and owes no hood.

The exact equipment wording, and where it comes from

California requires that "Coffee urns, deep fat fryers, steam tables, and similar EQUIPMENT shall be equipped with positive closing lids that are fitted with a secure latch mechanism", with a compartment as the alternative, and that "Metal protective devices shall be installed on the glass liquid level sight gauges on all coffee urns". The same section requires a 10 BC-rated extinguisher on any unit "equipped with heating elements or cooking equipment".

[12]

The fire code threshold misses an espresso machine too. That rule reaches only units with appliances that make smoke or greasy vapour.

The fire code wording, and where it comes from

The threshold applies only to "Mobile food preparation vehicles that are equipped with appliances that produce smoke or grease-laden vapors". [14] Read 30 October 2026.

What we could not find out about this

We could not render the mechanical code chapter that would settle hood classification for a mobile unit, so we assert no hood requirement for one.

The commissary you report to, and what it costs

From $99 a month to $1,300 a month, read on the same day. A commissary is a licensed kitchen you report to. You fill fresh water there and dump your waste water.

You may not even need one. The Food Code leaves the commissary to your inspector. It does not command one. Then the states go their own way.

The exact wording, and where it comes from

The FDA Food Code's own mobile matrix rests the "decision to require auxiliary support services such as a commissary or servicing area" on "the menu, type of operation, and availability of on-board or on-site equipment".

[20]

California then requires reporting "on a daily basis" by statute, Boston "twice a day", and Washington sets no number in rule at all.

[12][51][7]

Seven facilities publish a rate. All US dollars, all read 30 October 2026. The cheap end is Austin at $99 a month. The dear end is Anaheim at $1300 a month. Same product category, same day, thirteen times the price.

What you buy differs. In Austin that is a letter and a water fill. In Anaheim it is a parking space.

The seven published rates, and what each includes

Austin: "Monthly rate $99, quarterly rate $264, and annual rate $720" for the signed Servicing Area Authorization, water fill and wastewater dump.

[5]

Norfolk: "$100.00 per month" for a food cart and "$150.00 per month" for a food truck, each covering the agreement, 24/7 potable water and grey water, with parking extra at $200.00 or $350.00 with an electrical hookup.

[39]

San Antonio: "Commissary Letter Access: $300/yr" for the notarised letter and the right to fill, dump and dispose of grease, or "Home Base Access: $450/mo" with a monitored parking space and storage.

[37]

Groveland, Florida: "$799.00 + tax per year" or "$75.00 + tax per monthly.", kitchen time not included. [38]

Seattle: "Hot Dog Cart ... $400/month (no utilities)" for daily dishwash access, at a facility with "16 secure parking spaces, each with overnight power". [40]

Los Angeles: "$1200 MONTH" plus deposit, with hookup, potable and wash water, unlimited ice, grey water, grease and a truck wash.

[41]

Anaheim: "Food truck spots are $1300 per month."

[42]

We got this wrong once. Our cart page used to say nobody publishes a commissary rate. More than a dozen facilities publish one, and four price the thing a mobile unit actually buys.

Ask what a water fill costs. It is the line every competing page omits. One facility prices it in bands, on top of the rent. Austin, San Antonio and Norfolk sell the right to fill and dump as a standalone fee. It is not kitchen time.

The water bands, as published

Groveland, Florida publishes "1 water load and 1 water disposal per month: $15.00+tax", "Up to 5 water loads and disposals per month: $40.00+tax" and "Up to 10 water loads and disposals per month: $70.00+tax", each on top of the rent. [38]

What we could not find out about this

One facility publishes "We have competitive pricing, and we'll beat any competitors in our area" and "Los Angeles charges around $1,200 per month. We don't.", which corroborates the Los Angeles figure while quoting no rate of its own. [43]

No Toronto facility was found publishing a rate at all, only aggregator guides naming no facility. The two Vancouver-area facilities we did find print a bare dollar sign with no currency code, so their figures are not labelled here as Canadian dollars. [44]

Where you can actually park and sell

Four cities, four models. In one of them the permit to stand somewhere costs more than five times the licence to be a food business.

Two cities measure you from the nearest cafe

Chicago keeps you 200 feet from every restaurant, and its ordinance counts coffee shops as restaurants. The City testified that the 200 feet is measured as the crow flies.

Two hours is your maximum in a legal spot, and a fitted GPS unit reports where you are.

The exact ordinance wording, and where it comes from

No mobile food vehicle may park "within 200 feet of any principal customer entrance to a restaurant which is located on the street level", and the ordinance defines "Restaurant" to include "coffee shops", so every cafe radiates a 200-foot zone the City testified applies "as the crow flies". Two hours maximum in a legal spot, and a permanently installed GPS device must send real-time data to a public API "at least once every five minutes", accurate "no less than 95% of the time", with "a rebuttable presumption ... that a mobile food vehicle is parked at places and times as shown in the data". [45] One caveat: an appellate court recites that text as amended in July 2012, in a 2018 opinion, so a later amendment would not show.

In Toronto the road permit dwarfs the licence, at $7,793.15 against $1,464.14. Twelve months each, the road permit inclusive of HST.

Stay 30 metres from an open and operating restaurant. Two food trucks per block. Twelve hours at a time. No Gould Street from July 30.

The insurance figure is unresolved. The by-law says one million. The City page says two million. We print both.

The exact Toronto wording, and the two insurance numbers

"30 linear metres from an open and operating restaurant", "No more than two food trucks per block", "Maximum of 12 hours at a time", and no Gould Street from July 30. Vendors propose areas that "may be designated as Mobile Vending Zones" rather than picking from a list. The road permit is $7,793.15 for twelve months inclusive of HST, against $1,464.14 for the business licence.

[19]

Municipal Code Chapter 545, consolidated to 1 January 2025, says "$1,000,000". [18] The City's current food truck page demands "$2,000,000 in Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurance". Both read the same day. The page is newer; the by-law is the law. We print both.

Two cities push you onto private property

Austin allows no public right-of-way at all. Commercial or industrial private property, and only between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m.

You need a written agreement with a business within 150 feet for restrooms, once you stand in one place over two hours. You cannot hold the same spot past 180 consecutive days.

The exact Austin wording, and where it comes from

Under the Mobile Retail use, Land Development Code § 25-2-818: commercial or industrial private property only, "Mobile Retail may not occur on public right-of-way", hours of "6 a.m. - 11 p.m.", a written agreement with a business "within 150 feet" for restroom access once at one location over two hours, and no more than "180 consecutive days" in the same spot. [46] Austin's Mobile Food Establishment use is a separate zoning use with its own numbers, whose text we could not retrieve.

New York publishes every restricted street segment with its own days and hours. 190 of them as the file stands, plus three named blanket zones.

One segment is restricted all day, every day. One avenue is restricted on Sundays only, and only between November 1 and January 15.

Private property is where most operators end up, and New York writes that into the permit structure. Street permits are capped by law and waitlisted. The Restricted Area permit is not capped.

It costs $200.00 for Processing, or $75.00 for a new Non-Processing.

Which side a coffee unit falls on is not stated in any New York document we reached. The gap is $125. So we do not guess.

Boston says only that you need the owner's permission. Its annual application fee is $500.

The exact New York and Boston wording, and where it comes from

New York publishes every restricted street segment with its own days and hours, 190 of them as the file stands, plus three named blanket zones. [47] Broadway at the World Trade Center is restricted "12 a.m. 11:59 p.m." every day, a ban written as hours; Fifth Avenue between 47th and 58th on Sundays only, and only between "November 1" and "January 15".

Street permits are capped by law and waitlisted, while the Restricted Area permit "is exempt from the statutory limits which apply to public street vending", costs "$200.00" for Processing or "$75.00" for a new Non-Processing, and needs "a valid contract or lease with the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation or the private property owner where you will operate".

[48][49]

The licence is separate and cheap, "$50.00: full-term (two-year) license fee" plus "$53.00" for the mandatory course. [50] Which side of Processing and Non-Processing a coffee unit falls on is not stated in any New York document we reached, and the gap is $125, so we do not guess.

Boston says only "Private locations: You need permission from the property owner", on a $500 annual application fee.

[51]

What it takes to run it day to day

Power is the part nobody sizes for you. No espresso machine maker we checked publishes generator sizing guidance.

What the power costs

Start with an absence. La Marzocco's pre-installation and installation PDFs contain zero occurrences of "generator" or "genset".

Makers publish machine draw, not generator choice. So size against the published draw of the machine you mean to run. Our page on choosing an espresso machine for a small coffee shop is where to settle which one that is.

Where the absence comes from

La Marzocco's pre-installation and installation PDFs contain zero occurrences of "generator" or "genset", and nothing of the kind surfaced for Nuova Simonelli, Astoria, Rancilio or Crem. [52] Read 30 October 2026.

The machine is not the load. One seller argues the grinder, the fridge, the water heater and the pump are the load. It puts a single-group cart at 2,000 to 3,000 watts. A battery maker puts large coffee equipment at around 1100 watts instead. We report both rather than choose.

The two sizing figures, quoted and sourced

"A generator sized to running watts is a generator sized for the easy part of the day", says the only coffee-specific sizing guidance we found, an equipment seller's, putting a single-group cart in "the 2,000 to 3,000 watt range once the grinder, fridge, water heater and pump are counted", plus twenty to twenty-five percent headroom. [53]

A battery maker's food truck article puts "large coffee equipment" at "around 1100 watts" instead. [54]

Champion's own appliance wattage chart contains no coffee maker row and no espresso machine row at all. [55]

ModelOutputNoise, as publishedPrice
Honda EU2200i [57]"120V 2200W max. (18.3A), 1800W rated (15A)""57 dB(A) @ rated load 48 dB(A) @ 1/4 load""$1199*"
Honda EU3000iS [58]"120V 3000W max.(25A) 2800W rated (23.3A)""57 dB(A) @ rated load, 50 dB(A) @ 1/4 load""$2399*"
Honda EU7000iS [59]"120/240V 7000W max. ... 5500W rated""58 dB(A) @ rated load, 52 dB(A) @ 1/4 load""$4899* (iSNAN) / $4999 (iSNAC)"
Generac iQ3500 [60]3000 running watts, 3500 startingnone published"$1,049.00"
Westinghouse iGen4000DFc [61]"4000" peak, "3300" running"52 dBA""859.00"

No maker publishes a decibel figure with both its measurement distance and its load. Event organisers cap decibels. A number without a distance and a load cannot be checked against a cap.

What each maker does and does not publish

Champion publishes a value and "from 23 feet" and no load, and publishes no price on its own product pages at all. [56] Honda publishes a value and the load and no distance. Westinghouse publishes a bare number. Generac publishes none. Every figure in the table above is as published on 30 October 2026.

Two things qualify that table. Canadian prices stay in Canadian dollars here, and the model codes do not match. One coffee trailer seller's base package includes 30 Amp electrical and no generator. So the generator is an addition to most quoted prices, not part of them.

The most instructive account published anywhere is a London operator's. His first generator died in eight months.

The riders, quoted and sourced

A Canadian dealer lists the Honda EU2200iTC at $1,544.00 and the EU7000i at $5,948.00, in Canadian dollars, and the model codes do not match the US strings. [62]

One coffee trailer seller's base package includes "30 Amp electrical" and no generator. [29]

A London operator published this: "Our initial generator (£4,000 cost) only lasted 8 months due to workload. I subsequently invested £6,000 and 6 months to get mains power installed along the street at our trading location." Pounds sterling, as published and not converted.

[64]

This page does not cover everything the job needs. Finding pitches, marketing and taking payment are a separate question. We have not researched them, so we print nothing about them here.

What to do next

  1. Find out which permit class your unit falls in before you buy it. It sets your sinks and your tanks. British Columbia needs no hand sink and no warewashing sinks for plain tea and coffee. It needs two warewashing sinks plus 36 L of water for specialty coffee.

    [2]

  2. Check your state's waste tank ratio before you order a trailer. The Food Code, Washington and Texas all say 15 percent. British Columbia says 25. California says 50 percent, plus 15 percent of supply for beverage preparation, plus a third of the ice cabinet.

    [12]

  3. Ask the commissary what a water fill costs, not just the monthly rate. One Florida facility prices loads and disposals in bands on top of rent, at "$15.00+tax", "$40.00+tax" and "$70.00+tax" a month.

    [38]

  4. Read the parking rules for the exact streets you want. New York publishes every restricted segment with its own days and hours. One avenue is restricted on Sundays only, between November 1 and January 15.

    [47]

  5. If you want taps, check whether your state licenses them at all. Texas does not. [10]

  6. Then settle the beans. Coffee was 13 percent of revenue in the only published coffee truck accounts we found. Where coffee shops buy their coffee answers the same question for a trailer. Your permits sit beside the fixed-premises licences.

The short version

The question every competing page answers is how much a coffee truck earns. The operator with the most trucks on the road declines to answer it, under federal disclosure rules.

The question worth answering is which class your unit sits in. Several regulators treat a coffee unit as something lighter than a food truck, and two say so with coffee named.

That class decides your sinks, your tanks, your fire permit and your annual fee. A trailer built to one jurisdiction's tank ratio is not legal in another.

Builders mostly will not publish a price. The used market will. The commissary rate competing pages omit turns out to be published by more than a dozen facilities, four of which price the water itself.

Parking is the cost nobody models. In one city the permit to stand somewhere costs more than five times the licence to be a food business.

The revenue claims circulating online trace to a sentence with no citation, sitting between two cited ones.

One operator published his accounts in pounds, and his cups-per-day thresholds. Those two documents are worth more than everything else written on the subject.

Watch

See it, not just read it

2 videos picked for this page. They play right here, full screen on a phone, and you come straight back to the article.

Matt From Calioh38k viewsCovers the California permit rules for a coffee cart under SB 972, alongside the equipment.
CNBC Make It552k viewsOne operator's account of an Airstream build and what it turned over. A single case, not evidence.

Hosted on YouTube. Credit belongs to the channels named.

Frequently asked questions

Do coffee trucks make money?
Some do, and the best evidence is one operator's own published accounts rather than a market estimate. Dear Coco Street Coffee in London published its 2022 profit and loss for a 49-week, five-day-a-week street pitch: total sales of £144,560 and a net profit of £57,925, which the statement puts at 40 percent of revenue, with wages at 19 percent and coffee at 13 percent. That is one pitch in one city in pounds, not a category average. The operator best placed to speak for the category, a franchise running more than 250 trucks, discloses no franchisee earnings in Item 19 of its 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document.
How much does a coffee truck owner make?
Nobody publishes a dataset. The figure circulating as $14,000 to $21,000 a month traces to Franchise Business Review, where it sits between a sentence citing Grand View Research and a sentence citing Verified Market Research and carries no citation of its own. The closest thing to an owner's own answer is Vincent LaVolpa of Green Joe Coffee School, who publishes "On average, I see about $6,000 - $9,000 a month on the coffee trailer with 30-40 hours of work a week", and who also sells a coffee truck course, which cuts both ways.
What is the most profitable type of food truck?
No source we could open ranks food truck types by profit, so we print no ranking. What is published is how much the permit class changes your costs: King County charges a mobile unit serving only espresso $630 a year and the same unit $1,008 once it grills a sandwich on board, a difference written into the Board of Health code by name. The one page that does claim a coffee truck margin, 7shifts at "15% to 20% net profit margin", also publishes a worked example on the same page leaving $4,450 on $10,000 of revenue. Both cannot be right.
How much money do I need to start a coffee van?
Most builders will not say. Of the sellers we checked on 30 October 2026, two publish a price list, one publishes a single model, one publishes in-stock prices with no coffee build among them, and two publish nothing at all. The published figures that do exist: Cedar Trailer Co. lists one 12-foot coffee trailer at $21,000.00 with no espresso machine included; The Hudson Trailer Company lists a 14-foot coffee trailer at $46,000 and says "Most clients invest $60,000-$80,000 for a fully equipped coffee trailer"; Legion Food Trucks publishes one sentence, "Buildouts starting at $100k." All US dollars.

References

Every factual claim in this article is drawn from the sources below. See the source library for how we grade evidence.

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