Meet Tim Tobitsch

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tim Tobitsch. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Tim, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

My resilience comes from learning to go through hard things rather than turning away from them while masking pain and ignoring challenges. This perspective has served me well while overcoming Crohn’s disease in my twenties, overseeing four restaurants and two food trucks along with their various mishaps over the course of a two decade career as a restaurateur, losing my sister and only sibling in late 2023 to cancer while she was in the prime of her life, and conquering constant sciatic nerve pain in my left leg that began a month before my sister died and then persisted for 15 months. As I explored solutions to the sciatic pain I was experiencing, I learned that I had multiple bulging discs, severe spinal stenosis, and severely arthritic hips before finding relief through myofascial release.

Now in my early 40s I have replaced playing recreational ice hockey with swimming and my body thanks me. While it would be easy to miss playing a game that will always be a big part of my life, I choose to observe the reality that not playing hockey has opened up time for me to follow new pursuits. Similarly, when I sold my restaurants and food trucks to, among other things, spend more time with my sister in her final days, I allowed myself to look forward to a new professional chapter rather than fixate on the life I was leaving behind. To be clear, this took time and effort, but I never lost sight of the big picture, and I certainly do not regret maximizing the remaining time I had to spend with my sister before she died.

If I had only focused on the loss I was experiencing it would have been far easier to fall into prolonged despondency and depression. At the same time, if I had ignored the loss I would be emotionally bankrupt today. I kept myself busy while I processed what was happening and I continue to allow myself space to grieve. At some point I went from asking why I was still here when my sister was not to asking what I would do with my time since I am still here. I wrote a curriculum for aspiring food truck operators and recorded corresponding video content. Through that process I found new professional purpose. I recently launched foodtruckinsight.com, where my educational materials are available for aspiring mobile food operators to purchase. Whether it ends up being a successful commercial venture is secondary to the value I found in creating my website’s content. The creation process helped me rediscover who I am in the midst of a difficult season of life.

When I face any challenge I keep three principles in mind. First, I stay openminded. Second, I keep going, even when the tiniest steps seem impossibly hard, Third, I do not hesitate to lean into a community of people that want to help me if I am lucky enough to have that kind of support. At the beginning of a challenge I might feel overwhelmed and unable to carry on, but by remembering these guiding principles I am able to find my way back to my center and stay grounded. No matter what is happening around me I remind myself that it is not the same thing as something that is happening to me. Deep down I know that I have nothing to fear and I am always exactly where I am supposed to be. I remind myself that a lot can happen in a single day even as the years seem to fly by, and that gradual progress is every bit as worthwhile as breakthrough moments. I do my best to be kind to and patient with myself and the people around me.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Tim Tobitsch is a veteran restaurateur with more than 20 years of hands-on ownership experience. Tim opened his first restaurant on a shoestring budget at the age of 23 and developed his concept, Franktuary, into a household name across western Pennsylvania. In his years at the helm of Franktuary Tim oversaw four brick-and-mortar establishments and two food trucks.

Tim has always been passionate about street food of all types and is an expert in food truck operation. Even though food trucks often compete with one another, Tim sees them as a collaborative force that can collectively be more successful when working in community. Tim has coached scores of people toward food truck success and has also spoken on the subject in an array of academic settings ranging from a suburban Pennsylvania public middle school to a private university in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Tim is keenly interested in modern food systems and food sourcing, the welfare of service industry employees, and profitable business operation. The best street food he has ever eaten is in Tokyo, Japan. He would love to help you discern the next steps on your own mobile food journey through his new project, Food Truck Insight. Tim is available for one-on-one consultation and has also developed a comprehensive food truck curriculum available at http://foodtruckinsight.com.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

1) Persistence is incredibly important in the restaurant world. Something as simple as a bad week of weather can undo months of progress. If you lose sight of the bigger picture it is incredibly easy to give up at the most inopportune of times. It is important to have an exit strategy while having the tenacity to stick with that plan even as times become tough. Persistence takes discipline and the surest way to develop this quality is to practice it often. If you make the choice to see small things through whenever possible it will become easier to see bigger things through when the time comes to do so.

2) Mathematical fluency is an essential part of service industry management. There are obvious times when that skill is required, such as keeping your labor or food cost in line. This skill also is what allows a person to understand and create a path out of the industry that does not leave them in a financially stressful place. Not everyone will make a huge amount of money when selling their business and some people will sustain losses without ever selling. The combination of persistence and understanding numbers greatly reduces the chance that when you move on from your business a financial loss will occur. To gain comfort with numbers, practice mental math when the opportunity presents itself. Don’t rely on a calculator to determine a tip. When shopping try to add up the cost of purchases before checking out and see how close you come to the exact total. Make a practice of looking at the relationship between numbers on a profit and loss statement and when you notice things that surprise you make a point of exploring the story they tell.

3) Flexibility is perhaps the most useful quality to have in an uncertain professional world. Obstacles, both personal and professional, will present themselves as you go through life. When something unexpected happens it is important to react appropriately. This can mean pivoting or making wholesale changes. On a small scale this might mean making changes to a menu. On a grand scale this might mean changing career paths to be able to better care for a loved one in need. Realize that a lot of how you feel how about change comes back to how you look at change as it happens. You can choose to see the need to make changes to a menu as the result of prior failures or you can see it as a continued learning experience that leads to the opportunity to innovate. You can see an unexpected reason to make a career change as an overwhelming obstacle or an exciting chance to take lifeskills you’ve worked to acquire and apply them to a new arena.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

I am fortunate to have parents who care about me and want to see me succeed. They weren’t perfect, but they were at their best when they encouraged me to leave my comfort zone and see things through when I wanted to quit. In both those instances they needed to find a way to lovingly push me to places I didn’t want to go on my own.

Two specific examples immediately come to mind. By my own request I started taking violin lessons at a young age. I showed some aptitude, but the time I was around 10 years old I wanted to quit and spend more time with my friends. My parents recognized that I already had a healthy amount of time to spend with friends and strongly encouraged me to stick with what I started. Sure enough, half way through high school I enjoyed being a musician again and had some neat opportunities come my way through music. Among other things, I performed at Lincoln Center in New York City with the New Jersey Youth Symphony.

My high school also had a foreign exchange program with a technical high school in Toyama, Japan. I had hosted Japanese students in my home, but felt quite apprehensive about traveling so far from home. The stay was only a month, but at the time that more than doubled any time I had ever been away from New Jersey. It was also a lot further away from home than any family vacation I had ever taken or summer camp I had ever attended. They pushed me to take the trip between my junior and senior year and it ended up being one of the most formative experiences in my life. It awakened a life long passion for travel and the pursuit of understanding people and cultures from all over the world.

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Tim Tobitsch
Megan Lindsey

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