A commissary kitchen is a licensed commercial kitchen you rent by the hour or by the month to prep, cook and store food, and for food trucks it's often where the truck parks, fills its water and empties its waste. What it costs is the kitchen time plus everything around it: shelves of dry, cold and frozen storage, truck parking with power, a deposit, and sometimes cleaning or waste fees. In the example below, a food truck using 30 hours a month pays about $1,400 all in on an hourly plan; a monthly membership with 40 hours included only wins past about 36 hours. Below are the costs line by line, the break-even between plans, what to check in the agreement, and how to keep your stock separate from everyone else's.
The short version
- You pay for kitchen hours, storage shelves, and for trucks, parking with power and water.
- Hourly suits light or uneven use; a monthly membership suits steady, heavier use.
- Work out the break-even in hours before you choose.
- Read the agreement for booking rules, cleaning duties, deposits, insurance and notice.
- Label and count your stock: you share the walk-in with strangers.
- Divide the kitchen's monthly cost by meals or units to see what it adds to each one.
- TaroStack keeps the commissary and the truck as separate sites, with stock in each. More below.
What you pay for
| Cost | Example | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen time, hourly | $25 an hour | Often a minimum booking, and prime hours may cost more |
| Monthly membership | $1,100 | Includes 40 hours and a shelf each of dry and cold storage, in this example |
| Dry storage shelf | $75 a month | Per shelf or rack |
| Cold storage shelf | $125 a month | In the shared walk-in |
| Freezer shelf | $100 a month | |
| Truck parking, power and water | $350 a month | For food trucks |
| Deposit | One month | Refundable if you leave it clean |
| Waste and grease disposal | Sometimes extra | Ask |
These are example prices; rates vary a lot by city and kitchen. Ask what's included in the hourly rate: equipment, smallwares, cleaning supplies, and whether setup and cleanup time counts as booked time.
Hourly or monthly: the break-even
A food truck needs a cold shelf, a dry shelf, a freezer shelf and parking either way.
Hourly plan $25 × hours + $75 dry + $125 cold + $100 freezer + $350 parking
= $25 × hours + $650
Membership $1,100 (40 hours, dry and cold shelf included) + $100 freezer + $350 parking
= $1,550, up to 40 hours
Break-even $25 × hours + $650 = $1,550 → 36 hours a month
| Hours a month | Hourly plan | Membership |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | $1,150 | $1,550 |
| 30 | $1,400 | $1,550 |
| 36 | $1,550 | $1,550 |
| 40 | $1,650 | $1,550 |
Below 36 hours, hourly is cheaper; above it, the membership. If your hours swing with the season, compare a busy month and a quiet one, not the average.
What it adds to each meal
At 30 hours a month, the truck sells about 1,200 meals. $1,400 ÷ 1,200 is about $1.17 a meal for the kitchen, storage and parking, before a single ingredient. That number belongs in your menu prices, and it falls as you sell more from the same hours. How a kitchen cost fits into a cost per meal is worked through in meal prep business startup cost, and how the food side compares is in what is a good food cost percentage.
What to check in the agreement
| Clause | Why |
|---|---|
| Booking rules and minimum hours | Whether you can get the hours you need, when you need them |
| What counts as booked time | Setup and cleanup can add an hour a session |
| Cleaning duties and inspections | Fees or penalties if your station isn't left clean |
| Storage: how much, where, labeled how | Space is the thing that runs out |
| Insurance | Kitchens usually want a certificate naming them as additional insured |
| Deposit and notice period | What you get back, and how long to leave |
| Rate changes | How much notice before prices go up |
| Permits | Many health departments require food trucks to operate from a licensed commissary; make sure it's on file |
Requirements for food trucks and caterers are set by your city or county health department, so ask them what the commissary has to provide before you sign.
Keeping your stock separate
In a shared kitchen, your stock sits beside a dozen other businesses'. Label every container with your business name and the date, keep to your own shelves, and count what you have before and after each session. Things go missing in shared walk-ins, usually by mistake, and a count is the only way to know. Moving stock to the truck is a transfer worth writing down too, so you know what went out and what came back. A simple sheet for a truck is in food truck inventory spreadsheet.
Where this stops working
On a sheet, the commissary's shelves and the truck are one number. The cold shelf has three cases of chicken, the truck has one open case, a case went missing on Tuesday, and the sheet says four. Prep made at the commissary on Sunday has a date written in marker. When the health inspector asks where Tuesday's chicken came from, or the owner asks what a week's waste cost, the answer is in someone's memory.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps the commissary and the truck as two places with their own stock, and the moves between them on record.
Each place has its own stock. The commissary kitchen and the truck (or a market stall, or a second truck) are sites, with stock kept per site and per shelf. Moving food from the commissary to the truck is a transfer, with stock in transit until it lands, so you always know what's where. Counts run on a phone, even in the walk-in or on the truck with no signal, and show what each difference is worth before you post it, so a missing case shows up the day it goes missing.
Prep has lots and dates. Recording a prep batch at the commissary takes the ingredients from the lots used, notes them automatically, and gives the prep its own lot code and use-by date. Lot labels print with the date and a barcode instead of a marker. Oldest date goes first everywhere stock is picked, and TaroStack forecasts what will expire before it's used.
And the waste has a number. Every write-off carries its reason (expired, spoiled, damaged), so the losses report shows what was thrown away, at which site, and what it cost. Ingredients come in at what you paid, recipes cost themselves from it, and margins are reported per product.
| The job | One sheet for everything | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What's at the commissary vs the truck | One number | Stock per site and shelf |
| A missing case | Never noticed | A count with its value, that day |
| Prep dates | Marker on a lid | Lot labels with use-by dates |
| A week's waste | A guess | Losses by reason, site and cost |
Counts, lots, expiry and the losses report are on every plan, from $49 a month; more than one site with transfers, and prep batches from recipes, are on Standard at $99. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.