Truck Stop visited Chef Daniel Tang of Sugar Philly in University City to chat about what it takes to run his delicious dessert truck and found out that while it didn't start out so easy, it became pretty sweet. 

Phrequency: How did you get into this profession?

Dan: Awesome question. I’m from New York, and I went to school at Temple.  I got a lot of scholarship to go there and I was a Political Science major. When I graduated I was like uhh what do I do? (laughs) I graduated in 2008, and it was like the worst time to graduate, so I’m thinking seriously what do I do now? Do I want to be a consultant? I never wanted to go to law school.  So what could I do? I did a lot of temp work in the city.  I had great co-workers, I had great bosses, but it didn’t make me happy. 

Now, the summer before Freshman year of college I actually started baking for some friends of mine, and they really liked it. It honestly became a hobby of mine. I think all of my friends in college saw and knew that I was really good at it. They always kind of encouraged me like, 'you really should work at a restaurant', but I didn’t know how to do that.  I never really took it seriously.  A year later, in May 2009, my buddy from school, John, he was like 'hey, I wanna start a business, I wanna start a food truck, but I can’t cook and I know you can'. So then he talked to his friend Franklin, and then we met up around July of that year and we were all on-board by August. And, that’s why I am where I am today! (laughs)

 Phrequency: What’s the hardest part about working on a food truck?

 Dan: I think a lot of people think that it looks easy.  They look at my hours and see 12 pm-6pm or 12pm-7pm, depending on the time of year.  People just see my window open and they think I just sell stuff, but there’s so much more that has to go into it. The truck itself can be a nightmare. It’s like a mobile restaurant, it gets so ridiculous sometimes. Think about all of the problems that you have with your car. Your battery dies, your oil needs to be changed, and you need to get gas. You have all of the problems associated with your car, and then all of the problems associated with a restaurant. There’s keeping things at the right temperature, there’s having hot water so you can wash pans and be sanitary, there’s cleaning, the hardest part is all of the back work that goes into it.  A lot of people look at it as “oh you’re just open 12-6”, but my schedule is more like 6 am-8 pm. But it’s good! I like it, and it’s fun.