🎯 The business: a tent, a table, a menu of three things, and a weekend market. You test whether strangers will pay for your food for about $75 a weekend before anyone talks about a truck or a lease. The market is the cheapest restaurant school there is.

Market shoppers who arrive hungry. Hot items such as tamales, breakfast sandwiches, dumplings or kebabs sell at $8 to $14; a good stall at a busy market does 100 to 250 transactions in a morning. Catering requests follow, and those are the bigger tickets.

Apply to two markets; the good ones have waitlists, so apply early and offer to fill cancellations. Get the health permit and a commissary agreement, which most counties require for prep. Cook three items you can make fast in a line. Track sales per item per hour on your phone, because that data is the whole reason you are there.

At 150 sales averaging $11, a Saturday is about $1,650 of revenue with food cost around 30 percent and $75 to $125 in market and commissary fees. Two markets a weekend for a season tells you, in numbers, whether the menu deserves a cart, a truck or a storefront. Many stall owners never go further and net $40,000 to $60,000 a year on weekends.

County health department rules for temporary food vendors (handwashing, temperatures, a certified food manager), a commissary for prep and storage, fire rules for propane, the market’s own insurance requirement, and sales tax registration. Each county differs, so call before you buy gear.

Rain. Running out at eleven or throwing away half at one; the per-hour data fixes both over a season. A menu that needs more hands than you have in a rush. And the temptation to add items; three fast things beat ten slow ones every time.