The Cost of Operating a Hot Dog Cart

Call it the half-million-dollar hot dog cart. Mohammad Mastafa of Astoria, Queens, has to sell almost that much in drinks and snacks annually to break even on the pushcart he owns at Fifth Avenue and East 62nd Street near the Central Park Zoo. He pays the city’s parks department $289,500 a year just for the right to operate his single cart there.

You may not think that it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to operate a hot dog cart, but there you have it.

Photo: Tony Fischer

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