From a consumer perspective, a food truck menu is simply a list food that is available to customers. However, a smart food truck vendor know that the menu is one of the most important components for establishing and maintaining a profitable flow of customers. Due to limited storage and cooking area in a food truck, vendors typically keep their menus with a small number of menu items and to rotate them.
If your food truck has a restaurant style menu that carries more than 10 different entrees, you may want consider making a change. This concept emphasizes doing what you do best and eliminating the extras. Stop trying to be everything to everyone, and instead build your brand message and concept of your food truck. This has worked for food trucks around the country, and could be the winning recipe for your mobile food business in the future.
Simple menus help focus your food truck kitchen staff on your best dishes and the dishes that keep customers returning with an idea of what they want. This will help your food truck to be known for an individual item or concept, and cultivate creating a market niche where it might not already exist.
Top 5 Reasons For A Small Number Of Menu Items
- Fresher Food. If you have less items on your food truck menu, then you have less produce you need to stock. This means the produce you are using will get used faster and, therefore, it’ll be fresher.
- Faster Covers. With a small menu, your food truck staff has fewer recipes and prep instructions to follow. This means they can turn out dishes faster and thus covers turn faster.
- More Consistency. Consistency is king in the food service industry. With fewer recipes and prep instructions to follow, the kitchen staff will better know your recipes. This means they can produce a smaller amount of items wonderfully instead of a large amount of items mediocre.
- Happier Staff. Culinary professionals typically like to experiment. They like to keep things new. With a smaller menu, you can stick to your best sellers and introduce featured, seasonal dishes without hurting your bottom line.
- Knowledgeable Servers. With fewer menu items you will have less training to make sure your service window staff KNOWS your menu. They’ll know more which means they’ll be more apt to up-sell and help your customers which means higher ticket averages.
RELATED: Keeping A Simple Food Truck Concept
The Bottom Line
This is your business, your food truck and your brand. Give your customers a small number of menu items with a consistent great experience on all sides of your food truck brand and they’ll keep coming. A single food truck can’t please everyone so stop trying.
Do you have any additional reasons why a smaller number of menu items works for food trucks? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. You can share your ideas in the comment section below or on social media. Facebook | Twitter
