She started an egg roll stand under a $1,500 tent — now it pulls in $150,000-plus a month
3 min read · RealCase summary
Daphne started her egg roll business with a $1,500 budget for a tent, fryers, oil, and wrappers, coming from a sandwich-and-wrap background and reworking the format around the fillings rather than the wrapper. Raised by her grandmother after losing her mother at 11, she built the business without loans or outside investors.
The operation moved from tent to trailer within three months, then to a food stall, then a full restaurant, outgrowing two spaces in under two years. On a strong month it now brings in more than $150,000, with daily output of 800-1,000 egg rolls and a recorded peak of 1,200 in a single day; the average ticket runs $34 per guest, with egg rolls priced $9-$10.50 and chicken bacon ranch as the top seller.
Monthly costs run roughly $20,000 for food, $23,000 for labor, $6,000 for rent, $4,600 in shared sales/site fees, about $4,200-$4,250 for insurance, $900 for utilities, and $5,000 for supplies -- around $55,000 in major costs total. Prep starts at 2:30 a.m. daily, with 700-800 items pre-rolled on peak days. There's no paid advertising; growth has come from two Instagram/Facebook posts a day and word of mouth. "You can pour money into ads or you can make something so good that people market it for you," she said.
Key takeaways
- ›Started with roughly $1,500 covering a tent, fryers, oil, and egg roll wrappers
- ›Grew word-of-mouth demand from a pop-up tent into a trailer, then a food stall, then a full restaurant — with no paid ads
- ›Now serves 800–1,000 egg rolls a day during peak periods, with monthly revenue exceeding $150,000
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