Food truck catering, cooked where it is eaten.

What catering covers.

Four things arrive together, which is the point of booking it as one line rather than four. Anything you already have — a chef, a menu, a venue that insists on its own paperwork — we work around instead of duplicating.

How the menu gets built.

Built around one thing done well

A truck kitchen is small, and that is a constraint worth designing to rather than fighting. A tight menu executed fast beats a long one served slowly, and it is what keeps a three-hour window moving.

Dietary requirements are structural

We plan the alternates into the menu rather than bolting them on, so a vegan guest is not handed the one thing that happens to be left. Tell us the split and we build to it.

Your chef, if you have one

Plenty of clients arrive with a menu, a chef, or a restaurant partner already attached. The truck can run as their kitchen instead of ours — we have built exactly that for a Michelin-starred dining room.

Dessert and coffee are separate instruments

A dessert or coffee service late in the day does a different job from the main meal, and often lands better as a second vehicle than as three more items on one menu.

If the event is a wedding, the menu question usually turns into a timing question instead — see food trucks for weddings for how late-night service and dessert are handled around a plated dinner.

Headcount, and the pace it implies.

Catering questions almost always arrive as a headcount. The more useful number is how fast that headcount needs feeding, because that is what decides how many trucks you are actually booking.

Around 150 guests, one truck, three hours

That is the comfortable envelope for a single truck at a steady pace. It is a service-window limit, not a food limit.

Past that, add a truck — not time

One window can only move one queue however long you leave it open. A second truck halves the wait; a longer window just stretches it.

A hard rush is a different problem

Five hundred people released at once by a keynote or a last dance is not the same as five hundred arriving over an afternoon. We staff the first case differently.

The numbers you need to plan.

Throughput is set by the menu, not the vehicle. A dessert cart handing over pre-portioned scoops and a truck building burgers to order are both “a food truck” and differ by roughly three times on covers per hour. Scope against the row that matches what you are actually serving.

Guests per hour, by menu type

Simple, pre-portioned menu

100–150 guests / hour

Scoops, slices, pastries, packaged items. Nothing finished to order.

Standard hot menu

60–100 guests / hour

The usual planning case: a tight menu, cooked and assembled on the truck.

Cook-to-order or custom

40–60 guests / hour

Long builds, many modifiers, or plating. Slower on purpose, and worth it sometimes.

One truck, one three-hour window

~150 guests

Our standing planning figure. Comfortable rather than maximum.

What to check at your venue

Overhead clearance to check

13.5–14 ft

The usual limit for garages, loading docks, and covered entrances. Rooftop equipment adds up to a foot on top of a truck’s base height.

Power

Generator or shore power

Draw depends entirely on the equipment on board — a coffee cart and a fryer kitchen are not in the same class. We confirm the figure for your specific truck at quote.

These are category planning ranges, not a spec sheet for a particular vehicle. Throughput moves with the menu and power moves with the equipment on board, so the exact figures for the truck you book are confirmed in writing on your quote.

What catering costs.

Two numbers, not one. The truck, its operator, and service staff start at $1,500 a day. The food is quoted separately against your headcount and menu. We publish it this way because a flat per-head figure hides which half of your money is buying the vehicle and which half is buying lunch — and those two move independently.

A branded, wrapped activation that also feeds people is a different tier again, starting at $10,000 for a single day. The full breakdown lives in our national cost guide, and the city-specific permitting costs are in the NYC guide. Both are published guidance rather than a quote; yours comes back itemized within 48 hours.

Wedding food truck catering.

Weddings are the single most common catering booking we take, and almost never the whole meal. The usual shape is a plated dinner handled by the venue or a traditional caterer, and a truck brought in for the part they are not staying for — late-night service after the dancing starts, or a dessert course people queue for instead of politely ignoring.

That split matters commercially, because it is what lets a truck run alongside an existing catering contract rather than replacing it. Most venues that say no to “a food truck instead of catering” say yes to a truck arriving at ten for ninety minutes of service. It is also why wedding catering is usually cheaper per guest than it looks: you are buying one service window, not a full dinner.

Timing, venue permissions, headcount, and what each moment costs are all set out on food trucks for weddings. An ice cream truck covers the dessert version and a coffee cart the morning-after brunch, both on the same day rate as a full truck.

Catering is not the default.

It is worth saying plainly on the page that sells it: a good number of our bookings involve no catering at all. Brands hire the truck as a branded vehicle and bring their own product to hand out; agencies book it as experiential marketing where the food is the reason people stop rather than the point of the exercise.

So catering is on the table whenever you want it and quietly off it when you do not. If what you actually need is the vehicle and the crew without a menu attached, that is a straight food truck rental — same trucks, same staff, no menu on the invoice.

Where we cater.

All five boroughs — Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island — plus Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Food truck catering in NYC is mostly a parking and permitting problem rather than a cooking one, and each borough poses it differently; our borough-by-borough page sets out what each one actually takes. Outside the city, New Jersey and Long Island have their own pages, because both book differently from a Manhattan date. Indoor venues are usually workable too: the truck parks in a loading zone, garage, or driveway and staff run plates in.

Food truck catering FAQs

What is food truck catering?

A food truck parked at your event, cooking and serving to your guests for an agreed service window. The difference from conventional catering is that the kitchen arrives with the food: everything is finished on site and handed over directly, rather than cooked elsewhere and held warm in transit.

How is food truck catering priced?

As a day rate plus the menu, not a flat per-head figure. The truck, its operator, and service staff start at $1,500 a day; the food is then quoted to your headcount and menu on top. Pricing it this way means a 60-guest event and a 140-guest event on the same truck do not pay the same amount for the same vehicle.

Can we bring our own chef or menu?

Yes, and it is common. The truck can run as your chef, restaurant partner, or in-house team’s kitchen rather than ours. We built exactly that arrangement for Eleven Madison Park, whose custom truck ran their own program end to end.

Do you cater breakfast and coffee service?

Yes. Morning service is usually better handled by an espresso cart than a full truck — a cart fits through a standard doorway, works indoors in a lobby or office, and is built for drink throughput rather than cooked plates. Both can run on the same booking.

Can one booking cover both catering and branding?

Yes, and it is the most common combined request. A custom wrap turns the same truck that is feeding people into the photographable centrepiece of the event. The wrap is a one-time cost of $5,000–$15,000+ that spreads across every day of a run.

Can a food truck cater a whole wedding, not just late night?

Yes, though most do not. A single truck comfortably covers around 150 guests across a three-hour window, which is a full reception meal for a mid-sized wedding — past that you want a second truck rather than a longer window. The more common booking is a truck alongside the main caterer for late-night service or dessert, because it costs a fraction of a full dinner and does not touch the existing catering contract.

What is not included in a base rental?

The base day rate covers the truck, its operator, and service staff — not the food. Catering is quoted separately, on purpose, so a client who only needs the vehicle is not paying for a menu they did not ask for. Wraps and multi-truck coverage are quoted separately for the same reason.