Blog 1: How we got into Food Trucks

It all started with a bowl of noodles and cheese.

My name is David Sevcik.  Along with my wife Meghan, daughter Avery, and the hardest working and most friendly team in Denver we are trying to build something different.  Food trucks are habitually small business.  They are where a chef goes off to test their cooking and create their own opportunity.  Typically, in Denver, Co food trucks stay as a single entity or even a select few have ventured into 3-4 trucks of the same concept.  What makes us different is that in our 5 trucks we operate 4 different concepts.  We also have visions for more concepts on the way.

Our first concept – Mac ‘N Noodles debuted in 2016.  We purchased the truck in November of 2015 and finally put it on the road May 24, 2016.  From there we built out a second Mac ‘N Noodles in 2018, before pivoting into Capital City Wraps in January of 2020 months before Covid changed the world we operate.  We later acquired The Colorado Pig Rig in October of 2020, opened The Walking Taco in April of 2021, and most recently acquired The Burger Bus August 29, 2021.  It is our goal and hope to be everyone’s one stop shop for all things food trucks.

How/why we got into food trucks.

Growing up in Cedar Falls, Iowa I always wanted to get into restaurants.  My father was a small-time lawyer at his own practice and my mother was a stay-at-home mom raising myself and my 5 siblings.  As I started to grow older and realize my 5ft 10in frame was not suited for the NBA I looked around at what my aunts/uncles and parents were doing.  For some reason law never seemed to interest me, however I had two uncles who were involved in the Pizza Ranch franchises and they seemed to be doing well and have enough freedom to spend time with their kids.  Looking back, I realized what I saw was their hard work 10 years down the road and the bumpy ride I was about to take was going to be a shock. 

I followed this dream onto Iowa State University where I would major in Hotel/Restaurant Management and Business Management.  My only restaurant experience outside of my degree was a roughly 12-month stint delivering pizza, 2 months at a brand-new Dunkin Donuts, and 3 months at Buffalo Wild Wings before I moved on to Colorado.  Firsthand I would tell anyone – my Hotel/Restaurant Degree provided no benefit.  If you want to learn about restaurants the best way is to work in one and there isn’t much substitution a degree can offer. 

Moving to Colorado was a large leap.  I packed my bag for rockier pastures and left my family in Iowa.  As foolish as it seems now, I had this dream of franchising a Dunkin Donuts or a Cupcake shop from my hometown.  I was confident that I was going to be able to get a loan for $500,000 with no problem at all.  What I failed to realize was that no bank, corporation, or investor was going to take a 23-year-old with $500 in the bank, no credit history, $30,000 in student loans or hardly any restaurant experience seriously at all.  It was at this point that I started to realize that it was going to have to be my own concept or nothing.

I’ll be the first to admit I never wanted a food truck.  It was going to be a last resort even though many people were telling me this is the direction we should go.  Food trucks have a lower barrier to entry, mistakes are more forgivable, and if for nothing else I wouldn’t have to leverage my whole financial future on something I did not know anything about – Restaurants.  After months of internal conflict and discouraging remarks from every bank I walked into a food truck was the only option.  Next week I’ll delve into the breakdown of what made the food truck feasible and what my single greatest decision before going out on my own was.