trucks in New York City it's been

serving up Taiwanese fare since it

opened for business in 2017 this is

Chris he's one of the co-owners and his

day starts early every other morning he

picks up the truck at 1:00 a.m. finds a

parking spot in Manhattan or Brooklyn

and sleeps in the truck overnight extra

code I should start I was just sleeping

like this to understand what it's really

like to run a successful food truck in

the culinary capital of America

I spent a full day with the youngling

team it's a Tuesday so we head towards

midtown Manhattan where the truck parks

on Tuesdays and Thursdays

the reason we're meeting in the middle

of the night is because in this business

location is everything Chris doesn't

mind sacrificing sleep to guarantee a

good parking spot though by the time we

arrive there's already one other food

truck parked on the block so this is the

prime spot until 12 21 is our go-to

location so you want to be as close to

the front as possible

get a backup camera yeah very helpful

very good investment this package in law

has helped us many many times

immediately after parking Chris turns on

the generator it powers everything

including the fridge and freezer or the

food is stored the way the regulations

are set up in New York City Chris can't

just park the truck and leave it there

he has to be in it at all times so we'll

camp out overnight

hey Cass you have

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till the wheel so the wife side faces up

and then you can stuff everything in

here and then that becomes portable

pillow and he can't sleep in the back of

the truck either I'll see you guys in

the morning

sleep yeah wave goodbye goodbye I head

home to get a few hours of sleep and

meet back up with Chris for morning prep

at 7:00 Oh your sleep last night

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solids pre fried chicken cook rice and

label containers sometimes a little

tough because in the winter we don't

have a heater in the truck so it's

pretty cold and if summer is pretty hot

and we don't really have an AP so I

guess it's just part of the process so

you just have to get used to the window

opens at 11:30 a.m. but customers start

lining up for dumplings and fried

chicken sandwiches as early as 11 the

beef bowl is a crowd favorite yeah

you're right before they open

the third one in line but my recognize

five minute

when I did like everything I passed this

through so and that's why I would fight

it different nothing draws a crowd in

New York City like a long line out of

food truck by 11:50 the beef ball has

already sold out yeah it is a running

joke that it it's a myth

yeah throughout the day they'll

accumulate parking tickets a lot of

people will say oh you know trucks are

great because you don't pay rent well

you do in different ways so like getting

parking tickets daily is one of the ways

that you end up paying it's all are all

approximately the same price so usually

the cheapest ones will get are about $65

and the most expensive ones are in the

hundreds and then you can get as many as

two or three per day on a bad day

sometimes a lot of days you don't get

any young Lincoln serve up to 250

customers in just three hours

two-thirty they're about to close up

shop only things they have left were

dumplings on the chicken bowl and they

just sold out of both of those so a

successful day on a good day we can go

through approximately I would say 12 to

1400 dumplings in terms of number of

covers will do I'd say like 200 to 250

covers in a three-hour window cover is

like a is one person ordering at the

window so it will include people who

order multiple items that still just one

cover and so you've been awake for over

how are you feeling oh I feel good

I always feel good by my crash in about

a couple hours by yoga right now you

look at chickens wake you off guys the

team will head back to Long Island City

around 3:00 p.m. to do a deep clean up

the truck and then replenish it for the

next day at 6 p.m. after hours on the

truck their work day is finally done the

whole food truck game is not just all

happy and fun just like any other job

any other startup you know there's a lot

of work behind the scene that people

don't know we pride ourself on doing

what we do because you know I think the

biggest joy for us is to serve people

what we enjoy doing it's very satisfying

very rewarding the end of the day I

would say all aspects that are tough is

not really that tough when we see people

giving us compliments giving us a good

review that makes everything worth it

yeah Chris lives on Yelp yeah I was not

a good way y'all better deal is for it

yeah

you