Field notes, checklists, and opening guidance
Use these guides to solve opening mistakes, inspection misses, and food safety problems with practical steps your team can apply right away.
Featured guide
June 19, 2026
A practical guide to opening a food truck in Austin and Travis County, including the before-and-after July 1, 2026 permit split, published fees, inspections, commissary rules, and location approvals.
Featured Topics
These guides highlight the compliance topics, kitchen risks, and operational questions visitors most often want help understanding, with related articles to explore each topic more deeply.
Food safety basics
Start here for the everyday food safety habits that protect service, reduce mistakes, and keep the team aligned during real kitchen pressure.
Sanitation systems
Use this guide to build cleaning routines that hold up during prep, service, closing, and the inspection moments that expose weak systems fast.
Inspection readiness
Read this when the real problem is understanding what the rules expect, how they connect, and where operators usually get caught off guard.
Plumbing basics
Use this when sink drains, air gaps, and backflow questions are slowing down plan review, inspections, or kitchen setup decisions.
Browse by topic
Best for lease diligence, permits, inspection prep, and opening timelines.
Best for SOPs, temperature control, sanitation basics, and staff systems.
Best for signs, checklists, logs, and quick operational tools.
Austin context
These guides stay close to the decisions operators face every day in real kitchens, real facilities, and real service pressure.
Austin focus
Lease decisions, inspection timing, and opening readiness all get easier when the advice matches the city you are actually operating in.
Kitchen reality
Food safety only counts when it still holds up during prep, rushes, handoffs, cleanup, and all the small moments where habits usually drift.
Latest guides
June 18, 2026
A plain-English guide to how readable a restaurant floor plan really needs to be, plus the small layout mistakes that make inspectors start questioning the whole operation.
June 18, 2026
A practical recovery guide built from the repeat violations, rushed fixes, and weak systems I keep seeing inside real restaurant operations.
June 18, 2026
A plain-English restaurant health code guide for owners and managers who want to understand what inspectors care about and why the same violations keep repeating.
June 18, 2026
The posted-materials list I see operators scramble for right before inspection week.
June 18, 2026
The plain-English timing guide for owners who do not want certification to become a last-week fire drill.
June 18, 2026
The pre-opening walk I would do before the health department ever gets the first look.
Local help available
If you are an Austin-area operator and want direct support instead of one more article, the consulting page is the right next step.
