The recent surge in gourmet food trucks came at a perfect time for the makers of food trucks. “The last three years were very tough on us,” Mr. Gomez said.

In Los Angeles, many food truck operators were driven out of business as their customers at construction and manufacturing sites lost their jobs. Orders for new trucks dried up and inventories of used and repossessed catering trucks piled up. For a while, AA had nearly 100 used food trucks for sale on its lot, compared with an average of 10 before the downturn.

But the downturn also hurt brick-and-mortar restaurants in Los Angeles, creating a pool of chefs and food professionals looking for work. Eventually, some of those unemployed people discovered the city’s stockpile of unemployed food trucks.

“Gourmet trucks are now our leading customer,” said Mr. Gomez. Over all, business is still down, from 26 trucks sold a month to six or seven now. But after shrinking from 150 employees to just 50, AA is hiring again.

In metropolitan areas, the economics of starting a gourmet food truck compare favorably to opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant, where $850,000 to $1.5 million in start-up capital is typically needed to secure a lease, renovate a space, equip a kitchen and hire staff, according to the restaurant consultant Clark Wolf. Going mobile reduces those costs to $200,000 or less, with additional savings possible if the owner can locate a used food truck in good condition for around $90,000.

“It’s a good business for people who can’t get traditional jobs and who are forced to be entrepreneurial,” said Josh Tang, co-founder and chief executive of Mobi Munch, a San Francisco start-up that plans to rent food trucks to established chefs and restaurateurs.

Over the next five years, Mobi Munch hopes to put 300 to 500 mobile food trucks made by AA on the streets nationwide. Mobi Munch will rent the trucks on a monthly basis, allowing entrepreneurs to explore the potential of what Mr. Tang calls “the mobile platform.” Each Mobi Munch truck will be a turnkey system, with a fully equipped kitchen and a cash register connected wirelessly to a central database.