I've always been fascinated by the kettle corn booths at festivals, events, etc. Given that GRM knows all, I'm assuming someone here has experience with the business. The operators are working hard, but the margins must be fantastic. What is there to know?
In reply to dyintorace :
A lot of it depends on your state and their health codes. Here in PA, you would need a "commissary" that is inspected by the health department that everything would go "home" to after a day of sales. You can rent commercial kitchen space, to the tune of about 3 grand a month, or you can maybe make a deal with someone who already owns a place, or you can try to get a portion of your own property up to code, not happening if you have pets. I've been going down this road about a year now I'm no closer to having a commissary than I was when I started, but that's the same with every food business in the state.
Fairs, festivals, sales shows, they all cost money to vend at, sometimes a very healthy amount, sometimes a percentage. It can really eat away at the margins just getting somewhere to sell. There's a decent amount of competition around here, combined with a lot of good ole boy politics, means breaking into that particular business is harder than it seems. Could be different where you live though.
Rules, regulations, and licensing can very by county, city, even by borough.
Ugh. I hope that's not the case here in FL. That's WAY more than I'm interested in taking on, for what would be a E36 M3 and giggles side business.
In reply to dyintorace :
I'm sure it varies wildly by location. I haven't looked into opening a food cart, but I'm pretty sure their profusion here (Oregon) wouldn't have happened if they required clearing that kind of barrier to entry.
My totally irrelevant but mildly amusing answer is some family trivia: when Orville Redenbacher decided to start his popcorn business he bought his seed stock from my mom's family's farm in Indiana. They raised the best popcorn corn in the Midwest.
It's probably worth googling the hot dog guy Ben.
He's kinda like Scotty Kilmer but he could very well be a snake oil salesman.
Hard to tell I don't have the time for sales pitches - there's a coding guy just like that actually turned me off that idea for a while.
I think in DC you can no longer get a food 'cart' due to our illustrious Council member betters in their postions of limited power either deliberately or indecidedly berkeleying up the new regulations when we had our explosion in popularity of food trucks about ten years.
So good for $20k trucks. Under $1k entry level carts not so much.
Apparently the restaurants they like to go to didn't like the trucks so something had to be done - you know the children aka the tax opportunity.
Aside from that if I could make a living selling danger dogs I'd do it. 
Don't forget your boat oar.
Oddly enough, the places where I always see kettle corn stands are at the Bass Pros and Cabelas on my area.
Hy-Vee and Price Chopper gets them a lot, too.
Maybe Kansas just has more lax codes for them, idk. I see people selling corn from the back of their old pick up all the time during the end of summer.
You have a few hoops to jump thru , legal permits , health dept and a legal place to set-up ,
Do you know someone with a store that would let you set-up there ?
Have them ask their insurance company if there would be a problem......
Good Luck , I hope it works out
hmmm?
Maybe it is just around here but the Kettle Corn vendors I see certainly don't look like they are making any money doing it. It is always some beat down mid 80's truck running on 5 out of 8 cylinders and a bent to hell utility trailer that is primarily composed of zip ties and duct tape. There is a sketchy "Carny" vibe to the folks who are obviously JUST clean enough you won't reconsider purchasing edible items from them.
I take it this is not the norm elsewhere in this country?
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