Top Tips for Creating Your Food Truck Menu
The food truck craze has now slowed down in recent years. In fact, with an increase of awareness for social distancing due to COVID-19, many diners prefer to eat outside, making food trucks an ideal option. When designing your food truck, perhaps one of the most important tasks is creating your food truck menu. Here are our top tips.
Tip #1: Choose Your Food Truck Menu Wisely
Food trucks have limited space. That means you will want to keep your menu items limited to delicious food made with relatively simple ingredients. You should also consider adding dishes with similar components, to make double – or even triple – use of what you have on-hand. Add a few side or specialty items to make your menu well-rounded.
Quick Tip: Keep your menu relatively short. Food truck customers don’t want to peruse a novel-sized menu. Give them a handful of great options to choose from so they are not overwhelmed. This will also keep your line moving faster.
Tip #2: Arrange Food Truck Menu Items Strategically
When creating your food truck menu, put your top-seller, newest item, or item with the highest profit margin at the top of the board. This spot on your food truck menu has the highest visibility, and therefore the highest likelihood of purchase. You want to use the space purposefully to push the item you most want your customers to order.
Tip #3: Consider the Names of Menu Items
Fun and playful menu item names can capture the attention of customers, especially if you are located in a food truck park with many options. Put some thought into the names of your dishes.
When coming up with names, play into your brand so that your food truck is consistent. This can mean choosing a specific theme to base your menu names off of, or simply choosing terminology that goes with your style of cooking. Have fun choosing names your customers will love!
Quick Tip: Choose fun menu item names but use unappetizing words or sounds cautiously. You don’t want to gross out your customers before they’ve tried the food.
Tip #4: Food Truck Menu Design
When creating the artwork for your menu, you want to consider the design. Your menu makes an impression on your customers long before they taste your food, so you want it to look amazing. If you have limited design experience, consider hiring the work out to a freelancer or fulfillment company.
- If you’re designing your food truck menu yourself, here are a few quick tips:
- Pay attention to your chosen colors
- Pick a legible font
- Don’t add unnecessary fonts, colors, or graphics
- Make the font large enough to see from a distance
- Stick to your food truck’s branding
- Don’t let the menu design distract from the food
Tip #4: Use a Food Truck Menu Magnet
Magnetic menus are a great option for food truck designs, because they can easily be swapped out as food options change. Do you serve a different menu for lunch and dinner? Do you have a Sunday-only brunch menu? Create these menus on magnets and you’ll have an easy, cost-efficient menu management technique.
A magnetic menu board also gives you options to add smaller menu magnets to hold items like sides, desserts, or drinks. You can be creative and flexible with removable magnet menu boards.
Quick Tip: food truck magnets can also be used to decorate the exterior of your food truck. This is especially useful if you rent a truck or frequently swap out the vehicle or designs.
Tip #5: Find the Right Food Truck Menu Pricing
Pricing can be tricky, and the mobility of a food truck amplifies that. When choosing pricing, take into consideration your costs and what margins you would like to see. However, you should also account for pricing of other local food trucks and the general restaurants in the area.
When adding pricing to your food truck menu, consider leaving off the dollar signs. They draw more attention from the customers than a standalone number. Also try to price menu items similarly; if there is a large price difference in your limited menu, many people will be compelled to simply choose the least expensive option.
About Dot It Restaurant Fulfillment
Dot It is a single-source brand partner specializing in food safety products and print solutions. We offer comprehensive fulfillment solutions—sourcing, printing, kitting, order processing, warehousing and distribution—for growing brands looking to streamline their supply chain and maintain brand consistency.
Dot It can also help you design and create your food truck magnet menus and other visual pieces for your food truck. To learn more, email sales@dotit.com or call 1-800-642-3687.