From Food Truck to Full Restaurant: The Kings of the Wings Share 13 Years of Hard Lessons

Dylan and Katrina started King of the Wings from a little food trailer in 2013.

They were among the first food trucks doing wings in Australia. No blueprint. No safety net. Just a gap in the market and a bet on themselves.

Thirteen years later they're running a restaurant, a food truck, popups and an interstate operation. But the road there was anything but straight.

A collab that went sideways on opening day. A food court concept that COVID killed two weeks in. A Commonwealth Games that turned Surfers Paradise into a ghost town. And a moment where they had to roll up in the middle of the night and take back what was theirs.

In this episode, Dylan and Katrina share the real story — the hard lessons, the partnership mistakes, the pivot to bricks and mortar, and why after all of it they'd still do it again.

You'll hear:

00:00 – From food trailer to one of Brisbane's most recognised wing brands 

03:00 – The collab that looked like a no-brainer — and fell apart on opening day 

06:00 – Rolling up in the middle of the night to take back their equipment 

08:00 – COVID, a food court concept and pulling the pin after 12 months 

09:00 – Going all in on their own — signing the Stafford lease 

12:00 – Food truck vs bricks and mortar: what nobody tells you about the switch 

18:00 – Why the food truck makes in 2 hours what the restaurant makes in 10 

22:00 – The menu engineering lesson that changed everything 

28:00 – How JobKeeper changed the labour landscape and why they're still salty about it 

35:00 – How to find and keep staff for a food truck operation 

42:00 – Hire on attitude, train everything else 

45:00 – Their advice for anyone thinking about opening a food truck today

If you're ready to build something that actually works — food truck, restaurant or both — book a free call with the Foodie Coaches team at foodiecoaches.com

Follow along: @foodie_coaches @tim.kummerfeld

New episodes every Wednesday.