LAKE HALLIE (WQOW) – It’s that time of year again. Some call it spring, others call it the start of food truck season.
With a jam packed schedule, it will be easy to find Ne-Ne’s Tacos food truck across the Chippewa Valley this year.
The owners saved for months to make their dream of owning this truck a reality in the summer of 2021.
“I love cooking,” said Rene (NeNe) Perez. “I’ve been cooking for 28 years, this is one of my dreams.”
Inside the truck, NeNe works with his wife Rhoda, taking the truck all over to serve up authentic Mexican food.
“It’s really awesome to watch it grow so quickly and so fast,” said Rhoda Perez.
But as fun as it is to operate the truck, things like rising food costs, supply shortages and the rise in the price of gas have created challenges for this industry.
“We live on gas,” Rhoda said. “We have a generator that runs on gas, we have propane that runs everything in here.”
But NeNe said the biggest challenge is finding help.
“I think the biggest challenge right now is finding people to work,” he said.
This as they are gearing up for a food truck season that will be twice as busy as their last.
“We’ll definitely have to be more prepared and try to keep more things on stock,” Rhoda said.
Keeping more things in stock as they see more customers from the community.
“I think the biggest surprise is how well received we’ve been in the community,” Rhoda said.
Even with the challenges countless other business are also facing, Rhoda and NeNe say they are prepared and wouldn’t change a thing.
If you think you’ve seen more food trucks in the past few years, you’re right. According to IBIS World, the market size of the food truck industry in the U.S. grew faster than the economy overall in the past few years.
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