How to run a successful food truck

Have a great menu and chef

Tweet often about your location and special menu items

Have set hours and some website or profile people can check when you are open

Add a new short term menu item weekly, this will create a buzz and demand, make sure you have it available for at least a few days so everyone can make it out and try it.

Have a great location where traffic can see you

Use social media to show off your pictures, menu and spread the word about your truck

Keep a level head when responding to criticisms and take suggestions into account

Make sure you are listed in all the online food directories, Yelp, Google Places, Yahoo Local and food truck Apps, take control of your listing and keep your hours correct and your links up.

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City Fire

Excellent!

Thanks to Scott Joseph's SJO deals http://www.scottjosephorlando.com/deals-specials I was able to attend a sneak preview of City Fire last night.

The decor and design of the place is really well done, lots of wood and historic pictures of Orlando. Good Feng Shui. According to our server, Mike and their website: " the décor of the restaurant is inspired by the early to mid 1900's in the United States. City Fire celebrates the best qualities of the American Melting Pot."

The menu is food on one side and drinks(wine, beer, etc.) on the other, which is nice because you don't have to keep flipping back and forth trying to decide what food you want as it's all on one page. They have appetizers, flatbreads, wraps and entrees. I found the prices to be fair which surprised me because the restaurant is so nice.

To start off we ordered the Manchego cheese appetizer, Manchego is a cheese made in the La Mancha region of Spain, remember Don Quixote? This appetizer was cooked hot and then covered with honey and truffle oil, served with crostini. The flavor was superb! Great first choice, the texture reminded me of Saganaki.

Additionally I ordered a second appetizer which was the Chèvre(goat cheese) in a thick rich tomato sauce, it was served with a softer bread than the Manchego, I really liked being able to try each appetizer with both types of bread, so make sure you ask for some of each. It was good but if I had to choose I'd order the Manchego, I think the goat cheese loses some of it's richness when heated up.

Next up I had the nutty cheesy salad(regular $6/ large $10), I never ate at Pebbles so I don't have the nostalgia about this salad that others might, but I do love nutty salads. It had sesame sticks, sunflower seeds & almond slivers with shredded cheese over what I think was iceberg lettuce :{ The salad was good but I think I would prefer it over a different type of lettuce.

There were so many tasty sounding dishes and appetizers I may have ordered a little too much but I took one for my Yelp team so you could all know what to or not to order. Next up was the lobster bisque. It was thick and just the color I expected, it had a nice drizzle of Crème Fraiche on top. Delicious! I believe it was $6

Finally the entrees($14-$24) the choices were: Salmon, Rainbow Trout, Pork Shank, braised Short Ribs, Filet Mignon with lobster tail or Foie Gras among others, this was a tough choice. I really wanted to try their sun dried tomato lasagna but since it was meatless and I had heard about their Chicken Vesuvius pasta, which is now a lasagna, I ordered that . It didn't come out like a traditional slice of lasagna, it was in a smaller bowl to keep it all together lightly broiled on top. It was tasty enough but not being a huge fan of chicken in general I probably should have ordered something different. If you like chicken then you will probably like this.

Sorry I had no room for dessert.

I'd definitely eat there again if I'm out that way. I'd be interested to see what the burger wraps and flatbreads are all about.

All the staff and management were super friendly nice and interested in our experience. I hope this place does really well and I'd like to see a location in central Orlando sometime in the future.

http://cityfirerestaurants.com/

Open from 4pm daily.