Food Truck Commissary Cost (2026): What 40 Kitchens Actually Charge

The short version

No health department publishes a commissary rate; the kitchens do, and most of them hide it. We checked 47 commissary and shared kitchens in 18 metros on October 13, 2026 and found 40 that publish at least one price on their own site or their marketplace listing. The pattern is consistent: a monthly membership or affiliation fee buys the agreement your health department wants plus water, wastewater and grease services; kitchen time is billed by the hour or in prepaid blocks; storage is almost always extra; and truck parking is either bundled, unpriced, or absent.

Every figure in this guide was read on the kitchen's own page or its listing on the date above; the page for each kitchen is linked in the table and in the sources list at the end. Prices change, so treat these as the shape of the market and get your own two written quotes. For what the agreement itself has to say, see the commissary agreement guide; for why the requirement exists, commissary kitchen requirements.

What a commissary bill is made of

What 40 kitchens publish

Read on October 13, 2026. "Listing" means the figure is on the kitchen's page at The Kitchen Door, a marketplace run by The Food Corridor; where a kitchen's own site and its listing disagreed, the own site is quoted. A dash means the kitchen publishes no price for that line.

Seven kitchens we checked publish nothing and say "contact us": PREP Kitchens (Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Austin, Scottsdale), Salted Lightly (Los Angeles), City View (San Francisco), Community Commissary (Raleigh), Romero's Cocina (Beaverton), South Sound (Sumner, WA) and the Commerce, CA listing. Four kitchens' marketplace listings were out of date against their own sites (NT Kitchen's parking had gone from $400 to $420, Super Okay's unlimited plan from $700 to $800, H&H's seven-morning plan from $1,300 to $1,500, City Chef's hourly floor from $15 to $30), which is the argument for asking the kitchen directly before you budget.

Four pricing models you will meet

• The unbundled menu (Phoenix, Denver, Houston, Chicago suburbs, Nashville, Minneapolis, Norfolk): a small affiliation fee, hourly kitchen time, storage by the shelf, parking by the space. Cheapest if your schedule is light; the total climbs fast once you add parking with power and a cooler shelf.
• The flat truck fee (Esser's $350 in Durham, Sunny Days $1,200 in Los Angeles, The Denver Commissary "$675 – up"): one number covers parking, prep and storage. Simplest to budget, hardest to compare, and it buys the same whether you use the kitchen six days or one.
• Hour packages (LIT, CBG, Eola View, Super Okay, Continental, AAA Las Vegas): tiers of prepaid hours with storage sometimes included; overage rates fall as the tier rises. Fits a truck that preps on a set weekly rhythm.
• Workstation shifts (both Seattle kitchens, H&H and Seattle Commissary): you rent a station for a shift on set days per week, $360 to $2,268 a month, and shelving separately. These are production kitchens that happen to accept trucks; neither prices truck parking.

What moves your number

• Daily return. Most health departments require the truck at the commissary at least once each operating day, so a truck that works five days a week is in the kitchen five days a week; hourly-only plans stop making sense around 10 to 15 hours a month, which is where the minimums sit.
• Parking with power. The single biggest swing after the base fee: $210 versus $420 at NT Kitchen, $200 versus $350 at My Commissary Kitchen. A truck without shore power runs its generator or loses its cold chain.
• Cold storage. Walk-in shelf space is priced per shelf and most menus need two or three; freezer shelves cost the most.
• Term. Six- and twelve-month contracts, three months due at signing (Kitchen Network), first and last month plus deposit (Seattle Commissary). Count the cash you need on day one, not just the monthly number.
• Real estate. Anaheim's $1,300 parking space and Orange, New Jersey's $3,200 80-hour plan sit at one end; Tampa's $50 membership and Nashville's $12 hours at the other.
• The kind of kitchen. A dedicated truck commissary sells the services a truck needs; a shared production kitchen sells time at a prep table and may have no dump station. Only a facility on your health department's approved list, or one that can be permitted, counts.

For the state rules behind the requirement and where kitchens cluster in each market, see the Texas, Florida, California, New York and Georgia commissary guides under Related. Georgia is the exception to all of the above: the base of operation must be under your own permit, so the comparison there is leased space you control, not a membership; see the Georgia commissary guide.

What it does to the event math

Commissary cost is fixed; it only gets cheaper per event when you work more events. Take the monthly total for your real schedule and divide by the events you actually work:

• A $300 affiliation plus 20 kitchen hours at $23 and $350 parking with power is $1,110 a month. Over 12 events that is $92.50 an event; over 20 it is $55.50.
• A $50 membership with 100 prepaid hours at $12 (Tampa) is $1,250 a month, but it buys 100 hours; a truck that preps 40 hours is paying for 60 it does not use. A la carte at $20 an hour, the same 40 hours cost $800 plus the $50.

The profit calculator carries the monthly figure into the per-event margin alongside booth fees and labor, and the operating costs guide shows where the commissary line sits against the rest of a month.

How to compare two quotes

Verify every requirement with the agency that issues your permit, and every price with the kitchen, before you sign; the kitchens' own pages are the only numbers that count, and they change.