03/13/2024
Hello, Food Truck of Greenvillians!! As we're heading for Spring and warmer weather, I know it's a time for neighborhoods and event planners to begin reaching out to Food Truck owners about planning an event. Please remember to consider the following when scheduling your food truck (which should be at least 1 month or more in advance).
1.The 2-3 hour event is the actual fun part for them. They spend a minimum of another 4-6 hours in prep and clean-up/breakdown time before and after events.
2. Whether it's hiring them for your business or neighborhood, it's also up to YOU to heavily promote the event as well to draw people from the public in. Share on group pages (like this one) multiple times and promote it on your personal and neighborhood pages too.
3. Based on the costs that many of them have, they like to have at least 45-60 orders minimum sold within a two hour window to make it worth their time based on their overhead costs, time spent prepping/breaking down, and efforts. They also don't want to throw away a lot of leftover food. That would be wasteful and tragic.
4. Remember, these are small business owners who want to make a profit like everyone else. While it looks cool to have a business like this, it is a lot of hard work. Please don't ever compare them to a kid having a lemonade stand. That would be uncool.
5. PLEASE don't hire 2-3 trucks for your subdivision on the SAME night. The only time this is even remotely acceptable is if you have a dessert type truck/cart or beer truck with a food truck and can guarantee each truck at least 50 individual orders. You need to also make them aware that you're planning this because it may determine whether they want to take on the event or not. When you hire more than one food truck, then you're costing them money and wasting their time.
6. These trucks aren't for your personal use to provide you and your family dinner for the night. They are NOT Uber Eats or Grub Hub delivery services. PLEASE respect their time and efforts that it takes for them to prepare for an event.
7. If the weather is predicted to be bad, it's THEIR CALL (not yours) on whether to cancel/postpone the event or not. They know how turnouts will be based on the circumstances and whether it's cost effective for them or not.
8. And please don't overbook your subdivision. Many are scaling back to 1-2 per month instead of 1-2 per week. Remember that typically around 15% of your subdivision will actually support the food trucks, so it doesn't matter that you have 300 plus homes. Just know that only 15% or less of that number will actually show.
