Food Truck Spotlight
Wetzel's Pretzels offers much more than great pretzels
Ethan Cisneros and Alex Winder, operators of Wetzel's Pretzels food truck, advise wanna be food truck owners to think big picture about all aspects of how to make the food truck dream a reality before jumping in.
November 22, 2021 by Judy Mottl — Editor, RetailCustomerExperience.com & DigitalSignageToday.com
The Wetzel's Pretzels food truck, owner and operated by Ethan Cisneros and Alex Winder in Salt Lake City, Utah isn't just about great pretzels. It offers customers a special bonus — six fountain soda options (a dozen different flavor combinations) from Thirst, Cisneros' brick-and-mortar beverage business.
Food Truck: Wetzel's Pretzels powered by Thirst
Owners: Ethan Cisneros and Alex Winder
Founded: August, 2021
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Q. How many trucks do you operate under this brand?
A. One
Q. Do you operate brink-and-mortar locations under this brand as well? How many?
A. Yes! I own Thirst! We have five brick and mortar locations. I am also currently building two Wetzel's Pretzels powered by Thirst stores.
Q. How did you come up with the name?
A. We wanted to find a name that would be fun and original but also that would help people understand the idea of what the collaboration was. We are taking a Wetzel's Pretzels store and powering it with Thirst soda mixers and treats!
Q. What prompted you to start a food truck?
A. A food truck was one of the food service businesses that I hadn't added to my portfolio yet. I have driven thru brick and mortar stores, and I have Thirst Catering, a $850,000 revenue mobile catering service that provides soda bars, beignet bars, and more for weddings, parties, and corporate events. Although this is similar, I soon found out that it is very different than running a food truck! I am an excited and ambitious entrepreneur and mastering a food truck that provides a next level experience is something I want to get done in my career. So, I'm here for the journey of learning how to do it!
Q. What's on your food truck menu? Why did you choose this cuisine?
A. Our truck features fresh baked soft pretzels from Wetzel's Pretzels. We make the dough, roll out it out, and fresh bake it into Wetzel's full pretzel menu consisting of twisted pretzels, Wetzel Bitz, Dog Bites, Pizza Bites, Pepperoni Twists, and much more!
To compliment this fresh baked experience, we have Wetzel's drink lineup including fresh lemonade and frozen granita. We also have soda mixers from Thirst! We have six fountain soda options on the truck and a dozen different flavor combinations to try with those sodas. For instance, our most popular, the Dr. McCreamy, is a Dr. Pepper base with raspberry fruit puree and topped with a coconut cream. Or maybe something more tart like the April Oneal which is a Mountain Dew base with pomegranate and fresh lime. The drinks and pretzels complement each other perfectly.
Q. Do you make all the food on the truck, or do you use home-based kitchen or commissary space?
A. We make everything fresh in the truck!
Q. What's the best part of being a food truck operator?
A. The direct impact that your hard work and thoughtful strategy yields on the truck. If you have the truck out for more hours in the week at strategic and high-volume locations, you will do more revenue. I think you very much get out what you put in with a food truck. The more time we spend strategizing and executing to find the best places to park our truck, the more we get out of it!
Q. What's the worst part of operating a food truck?
A. I think the worst part is unknown variables that come from having your restaurant inside of a truck bring. Such as generator issues, a leaky roof, electrical failures, etc. When it comes to maintenance and taking care of your kitchen and equipment, being on a food truck emphasizes the need for this 10-fold!
Q. What lessons have you learned since launching the truck?
A. Be strategic of placing the truck. I think this is everything. Can you place your truck the most strategically every day to yield the best results? Do you say yes to event inquiries from customers to come sell at their event (which by the way are 97% of all inquiries to a food truck)? These are all lessons I am learning.
Q. Is there anything you would have done differently at the start?
A. I would've scouted out a few potential areas to be my "semi-permanent" spot. Where I would advertise and build a customer base around being at every single day unless I got an inquiry for a prepaid catering lead that is $2,000 or more.
Q. Any advice to others thinking of launching a food truck?
A. How are you going to get people to your truck? I think when people start a food truck, they have a mentality of "if we build it, they will come" and it's just not true. Equal or greater focus must be put into how to drive traffic and create traffic for the truck. Will you be trying to drive prepaid catering leads and how will you do that? How much do you need to bring in on any given day to break even after labor, cost of goods, and all other event/truck costs? Think big picture about all aspects of how to make the food truck dream a reality before jumping in.
Q. Do you have any anecdotes about running a food truck? Any unique interactions or special events you've been booked at?
A. For our "grand opening" of our truck, we did a "Twisted Tour" as we called it! We picked six major cities in Utah (spanning across the whole state) and gave out 200 free pretzels in each city! We did this one city per day, over six days! It created a lot of hype and got our product in the hands of tons of potential brand-new customers!
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