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Coffee Cart BusinessHow to Start a Coffee Cart Business: LLC Setup
Starting a coffee cart? Counties check your water tanks before you pour a single cup, and one signed letter can come up at your first inspection. Why an LLC matters for a cart, what the paperwork looks like in Texas, and the key Bizee screens, start to finish. The cost band in the video counts only line items with a published price; tanks, plumbing, a grinder, a generator, insurance and your commissary come on top.
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Why an LLC for this business
Insurance
One county's farmers markets want $1M of liability coverage
Contracts
Weddings and offices book carts: sign as the LLC
The signed letter
Texas: no commissary of your own? Bring one to inspection
How to start it, in order
- Call your health department first and ask which permit category a cart like yours falls into.
- Form your LLC, then get its EIN. Already permitted under your own name? Ask your health department before you change the name on anything.
- Line up a commissary in writing. In Texas a signed letter is needed if the kitchen isn't yours, and a home can't be one.
- Build to the plan check: sanitation-listed gear and a waste tank bigger than the clean one (15% in Texas).
- Buy liability insurance and get the certificate. Markets can ask for it.
- Apply for your permit and pass inspection. Texas example, Type II: $618 plus a $400 inspection.
- Register for sales tax. In California, hot coffee to go isn't taxed, but a combo with a hot item is.
Every fact in this guide was checked against a primary source before the video was made.
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