I've wondered whether ekiben would fare well as a food truck in a major North American city (prepared in a commercial kitchen and just distributed by truck / hot-dog stand / whatnot).
That's an interesting idea. The turnaround could be a little faster than food trucks that are preparing food on the spot. Just have a list of what's available on a big menu, order and they hand it to you right away.
Some food trucks around here (Minneapolis) have kind of elaborate hand-cooked processes. You can see confusion where there's a line to order, and a bunch of people standing around for minutes waiting for their order.
not quite the same thing but there was a startup trying to serve bento boxes. IIRC after they started the realized there were spending more per box than they were making
It will not do well. And not because the food doesn't taste good.
It's because of 'customization' every American customer seems to want in a resturant here.
Almost no one seems to order food in US as it's offered by the restaurant. Everyone wants something replaced with something else, with something added a little more while something is subtracted a little less.
