New York’s food truck industry on the rise, giving hope to restaurateurs

ALBANY, N.Y. — What started as an idea between friends quickly turned into a new business.

“Right now, I work at a coffee shop and it’s great in all. I love the coffee industry. I’ve worked in the restaurant industry literally my entire life, so I know everything about the restaurant industry. But being able to work for your own business and be able to do that full time without having to worry or the stress of anything else is amazing. Like it’s the best thing in the world,” says Daisy Garney, co-owner, Aki Food Truck.

Garney and her team recently opened Aki, a bubble tea and ice cream food truck.

The food truck industry is booming – it’s listed as one of the most profitable businesses of 2024 by Forbes. According to IBIS World, the industry has a compound annual growth rate of 13.3% over the past five years. Starting a food truck can be beneficial for people who don’t have the funding for a standalone restaurant, but want to start their own business.

“It’s probably more ideal to do a food truck because you get to travel, you get to try different things, be in different places, and you get different crowds of people and inside of an actual business, you kind of get the same group of people. That’s a lot of regulars. Not many people really travel to you. So it’s just more fun, more adventurous,” Garney said.

According to Axios, there was a 10% jump in new restaurants opening in 2023 compared to the year prior and in New York alone, more than 4,300 restaurants were added to Yelp. 

Garney says working for herself is a luxury she never thought she’d have and it makes all of the challenges to starting your own business worth it.

“You can’t rely on another business like an owner or bosses or anything like that. You can’t rely on anybody for an actual job. You never know what can happen tomorrow. But in your own business at least, you can make changes. You can adapt to like the changes are happening around you. So do what you need to do to try to keep it going,” Garney said.