Rainy Days Can Be More Productive On Your Food Truck

If you are a food truck vendor, you probably already know that rainy days drive down your truck’s traffic and sales. With the Spring rainy season here, don’t be disappointed. The most successful food truck owners take this kind of difficulty as an opportunity to innovate. Sure, you can’t control the weather, but you can get work done in your truck and create incentives to get your customers into line at your food truck when the skies turn gray.

You may have read here at Mobile Cuisine to “save money for a rainy day.” Today’s article will give you tips on ways to “make money on a rainy day.”

3 Tips To Make Rainy Days More Productive On Your Food Truck

You’ve Got Time To Lean, You’ve Got Time To Clean. Your food truck kitchen is front and center when you open your service window. Why not spend a rainy day cleaning the inside of your truck? What better time to do so than when very few customers are in line at your food truck’s service window? Have your employees start with the basics such as prep and cooking surfaces. Clean the service window and floors, and if they have enough time, start moving equipment around and clean under and inside the equipment that can get grimy without regular attention.
Jump On Social Media. Millennials now make up the majority of the population and they use technology and social media for everything. Because of this, it shouldn’t be tough for you to understand the importance of social media for your food truck. If you’re like most food truck owners, you have set up social media account. A common problem we see, is that many food truck owners don’t take the time to update them consistently. Rainy days are the perfect opportunity to brainstorm with your employees and come up with some valuable content.
Train Your Employees. There’s always something new that you can help train your food truck staff members on. Rainy days are a great time you can do this the right way. Whether you review some of your current systems and processes and improve them, or help your employees develop some new skills, not only will this help your business, they will benefit and appreciate you for it. Train them on other responsibilities that they may be interested in outside of their current role. This will benefit you in several ways: they will feel more valued, and in the event that one of your employees leaves or moves into a different job, you will have someone sitting there ready to jump in.

BONUS PROFIT TIP: Rainy Day Sales

Discount sales are typically a business strategy nightmare. In many cases they don’t work. But even if they do, vendors run the risk of giving customers the impression that their menu is usually overpriced. This will have an impact your sales goals.

However, if you have a small, loyal core customer base; you can let them know that you’ll offer discount sales on rainy days to help boost business. Make the discount something simple that people can remember, such as “20 percent off” one item or their entire order. And be clear about what counts as a “rainy day” because most wet days have plenty of dry hours and even some sunshine.

The Bottom Line

If your rainy day sales start to show some promise, try broadening awareness of them among your regular customers by using traditional advertising, word-of-mouth and social networking.

Do you have any additional tips for food truck owners who want to make rainy days more productive? If so, share your thoughts in the comment section below or on social media. Facebook | Twitter