Nancy O’Leary, the founder and CEO of Food Truck Lady, has made it her mission to be the premier food truck management company in New Jersey and beyond. The company connects food trucks with events spanning across New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. Its primary focus is to help clients meet and exceed event expectations by working closely with all parties, providing comprehensive support and direction to all aspects of organizing food vendors for each special event.
The Food Truck Lady has been instrumental in serving the Hopewell Community, giving some sense of normalcy to life. Elizabeth Schreiber of Rosedale Mills, which has hosted a rotating menu of food trucks for several months, explained: “[After lockdown], I googled food trucks, found the Food Truck Lady, and that was the birth of Food Trucks at Rosedale! Food trucks were impacted by COVID-19 closures as they do festivals and such, so, it was a win/win for the Food Trucks and the community.”
In simple terms, the Food Truck Lady assists people in selecting the perfect food vendor(s) to meet their event needs or wants. The company then organizes and manages all the correspondence and email communications, then posts event follow ups into one combined and centralized point of contact. She also takes care of the vendors by administering the paperwork, ranging from health and fire permits to certificates of insurance. It’s clear that by partnering with the Food Truck Lady, all logistics related to event planning are taken care of, leaving food truck owners to concentrate on what they love – making and serving the food they’re passionate about.
“I have established relationships with food trucks from consulting and managing within the industry. I knew I wanted to open my own business to provide the food vendors more opportunities for both catering events and vending events, as well as for assisting food truck owners to go out and make a living,” says O’Leary when explaining how she started her business.
Food Truck Lady provides a service to the trucks in assisting them with locating additional events, thereby taking some of the stress off of managing a food truck business. This, in turn, became something crucial for food truck owners during COVID, where small businesses across the country were and still are struggling. Food truck owners already spend enormous amounts of time cooking and serving food. The last thing they would want to do is handle logistics and event planning.
O’Leary said “We support both public and private events, as well as food truck festivals.” She also is committed to using her business to promote all kinds of cuisines. “I have a fleet of over 60 food vendors. Seafood, tacos, burgers, hot dogs, Hawaiian food, cupcakes, Asian food. You can go to my website and click on Fleet Directory to see all my food trucks. It grows every day.”
O’Leary elaborated on how COVID has impacted her business: “Like every other small business, every event I had booked was canceled. It was discouraging, but we pushed through. We stayed in touch with the food vendors. It went from the business finding me to me finding the business.”
Despite concerns people may have over the safety of going out to eat at food trucks, O’Leary is confident that all her food trucks abide by CDC guidelines. “There are a number of trucks that have apps where you can pre order, pick food up and take it home. It’s a mobile “to go” restaurant,” she explained, noting that the trucks try to limit exposure for their customers as much as possible.
Despite COVID, without hesitating, she asserted that it’s very rewarding to do what she does. “I get phone calls from food vendors every day asking me questions and checking in. Knowing that they come back to me because they know I have their backs is very gratifying. To do all the behind-the-scenes work and then go to the events and see everyone having a great time is worth all the hard work.”
Food Truck Lady is here to stay and O’Leary has big plans to continue growing her business. “Referrals are always appreciated,” she mentioned. The next time you want to plan an event, or if you are a food truck seeking to expand your customer base, don’t hesitate to reach out to Food Truck Lady!
For more information, visit https://www.foodtrucklady.com/
Submitted by Brian Chin, who is a junior at Hopewell Valley Central High School. His favorite classes are math, computer science, and history. He’s involved in Model U.N., Future Business Leaders of America, and robotics. Brian enjoys reading, hanging out with friends, and playing tennis in his free time.
