Hello–
I am considering purchasing a food cart in the next year. Right now i am in the research stage and am happy to have found this board.

I found the application for our local health department and have a few questions. I am hoping to get some background info from the forum before I contact the health dept so I know the right kind of questions to ask.

Here is one requirement I have a questions about:

Letter from a commissary
– a commissary is a permitted establishment that gives you permission to use their
facility for some of your storage and to wash, rinse and sanitize your utensils.

It sounds like this is a restauant or store. Why would they give a cart vendor permission to use their facilities?

If I get licensed in my county what happens if I want to go to a festival in a neighboring county?

In one of the other forums on this board it said that your food costs should be 30% or less of the retail price. Are the guidelines the same for carts?

I am not especially interested in selling hot dogs (don’t hate me!) although I plan to if there is a demand. I looked at the website of allamericanhotdog.com. I can see that they offer carts with another focus other than hot dogs but did not see any details. What other types of foods can you cook/sell with a cart that the health department will allow. For example, can you sell soup?

That is about it for now. Thank you for your time.

Meg