Food for Dudes: The highs and lows of a food van in Launceston

Even the ranch dressing has a story behind it.

Years ago, after landing a job at McDonald's, Mr Chapman and a friend celebrated by grabbing some dinner at Smokey Joe's Creole Cafe - and instead, he got a job as an apprentice chef.

"I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career," Mr Chapman said.

"The [Smokey Joe's] owner came out and he was talking to us and said, 'hey, guys, what's the occasion?'

"We said, 'Ben got a job at McDonald's'.

"He said 'well, if you're interested in food, come see me for an apprenticeship'."

Fast-forward nearly a decade since Food for Dudes (and Dudettes) started, and the business has seen its share of highs and lows.

Before he started Food for Dudes, Mr Chapman said he was working two full-time jobs to save up money.

"My Dad said to me, 'why are you doing all this work to make someone else money?'"

A bank loan, council permit and one van later, a business was born.

In 2016, the Food for Dudes van started trading on High Street before eventually moving to where it is today in Invermay.

"I think we got in at the right time and we were lucky because when we started there, High Street just blew up," Mr Chapman said.

"It was just getting too busy, so we ended up building a second food van, El Chapos."

The El Chapos van had previously been used for storage space, until 2019 when it became the TexMex van.

"We kicked [El Chapos] off in December 2019, and then, well, COVID hit," Mr Chapman wrote in a blog post.

"Those were some uncertain times, not knowing from one day to the next if we could open."

Mr Chapman said the hospitality industry "changed quite a lot" post-pandemic, with inflation and supply and skills shortages.

Consequently, El Chapos closed for a short time before moving to Wellington Street where it was open two nights a week.

"People who had been in the industry a long time left hospitality and were doing other jobs, so there was just a massive skills deficit," he said.

"We were battling, [trying] to get labour for someone to actually be able to do what we needed done."

Despite the turmoil, El Chapos returned home to Invermay at the beginning of April 2024.

Food for Dudes was started with the mission of "restaurant-quality meals at affordable prices", Mr Chapman said.

"We always wanted to be able to give value rather than ... businesses now trying to take every possible cent out of the customer.

"We're actual genuine people trying to do the best we can."