My restaurant idea: The Food Truck Stop

Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives has emerged as one of my favorite shows on the face of the earth. It is incredible as to how many amazing restaurants and amazing people can be found within the borders of the United States. Shows like this are upbeat, culturally accepting, and nearly makes you forget about all the unfortunate troubles of the world. Now the question arose that if I were to make a restaurant that would strive to become featured on this show, what would it be? What would it look like? What type of food would I make? Well, I would definitely aim for something unique, and I have a doozy of an institution.


The Food Truck Stop would be my idea. It would consist of several food trucks in a confined space each selling different types of foods. Some of the food trucks will be outside and get this, some of them will be indoors. We will have tables mostly outside but will throw a slew of them inside as well. In terms of the looks of the building, the most important is this: A truck rams through it. What better way to get the attention of a community then to have a building with a truck that has embedded itself inside it? I would use the truck as decoration and as one of our coolers. And we will have a truck on the side with the name of the place and our logo.

As for the food, well, the menu varies itself depending on season, and day of the week. The outdoor stands would focus on quick-service simpler foods like your usual burgers, hot dogs, Hispanic street food, etc. The small fare will be outside, so people can grab and go if they wanted to. Now, inside is where the deeper, thicker food is at. Larger foods like pizza, pasta, crazy sandwiches, seafood, and more can and will be found inside, depending on the week. Some days will call for more Italian food, while others will call for more Dominican cuisine. Our frontliner however is a food that I want to sell only on weekends: the barbeque.

The key to good barbeque is the marinating and the slow time required to create the right taste. Yesterday, I finally cooked a cod that had literally been sitting in Jack Daniels bbq sauce and brown sugar for about 5-6 days. The end result was some of the best seafood I’ve ever cooked, hands-down. What I want to do is spend Monday through Thursday keeping the barbeque chilled and swimming with its special spices and sauces, just waiting to be cooked. Then finally on the weekend, we bring them out to cook—the brisket, the pulled pork, the chicken, the barbeque steak, and lastly, the barbeque patties. All of this will be available outdoors and indoors on the weekends and no other time.

Speaking of time, I would have the place open from 6:00 at night until 3:00 a.m. This way we can get those looking for a quick dinner, grab those looking for an indoor dinner place, and finally take on those with the munchies and/or midnight craving. The indoor portion would close first, leaving the outdoor food joints open until the 3:00 a.m. mark. For location most importantly, it has to be close to beer/alcohol heavy places like Ale House.

Bottom Line: The Food Truck Stop would be a restaurant that consists of a multitude of different trucks each with different menus and options of food---leading to you needing to visit the place multiple times to get the true feel as to what food we serve. And our specialty would be on weekends, when the barbeque is kicked to full-gear to compete with all the other foods. You can eat outside, you can eat inside, eat small, or eat tall. But my goal is to make sure The Food Truck Stop would deliver you a unique experience.

P.S. These are funny: