{"id":1515,"date":"2018-05-31T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zacsburgers.com\/?p=1515"},"modified":"2020-11-12T07:12:21","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:12:21","slug":"creating-food-truck-menus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zacsburgers.com\/creating-food-truck-menus\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Truck Basics: Creating Food Truck Menus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Getting your food truck road ready has been a labor of love, but you are almost there. All your hard work will pay off when you see your dream of running your own food truck come to live.<\/p>\n

In our series, we first looked at selecting your food truck<\/a> and building it out with all the necessary equipment. Now that is accomplished, you need to start working on your food truck menu.<\/p>\n

Check out these important elements of a food truck menu:<\/p>\n

1. Showcase Your Popular Dishes<\/h2>\n

When you are designing the menu board<\/a>, leave the upper right hand corner or the center of the board for your most popular dishes. The eye is naturally drawn to these spots first and this way you are ensuring that your best dishes are noticed first. Not every passerby will take the time to read the whole menu so you want to make sure the most popular dishes you offer pops easily off the board.<\/p>\n

2. Don\u2019t Cram Too Many Items onto Your Menu<\/h2>\n

When you are worried about having something for everybody, it is tempting to fill your menu with lots of options, but that can get overwhelming for both you and your customer. For one thing, if there is a lot of items all jammed together on the menu board, it can make it more difficult for your customers to choose and they might head to another food truck with a simpler menu. Also not to mention, having too many items to make will also strain things for you inside the food truck. There are only so much space back there so storing a lot of ingredients can be difficult. Plus you don\u2019t want the taste to suffer and that can happen if your staff is juggling making too many very different dishes.<\/p>\n

Along the same vein, even if you just have a few dishes to promote, don\u2019t fill the board with extra information that isn\u2019t necessary. Keep everything short and sweet and make it easy for the customer to find the information they are looking for.<\/p>\n

3. Choose A Board That Is Easy to Update<\/h2>\n

Prices are always going to fluctuate and certain vegetables may or may not be in season at different times of the year, so make sure your menu board is easy to update whenever you need to. Fancy boards might be harder and more expensive to update so take that into consideration.<\/p>\n

4. Design of the Menu Does Matter<\/h2>\n

Your food truck menu board is another great way to reinforce your brand. Use colors and visuals that reinforce your brand and attract potential customers. If you want to include pictures, stay away from clip-art and use photos of your actual dishes instead. For best results, hire a skilled food photographer<\/strong> to take the pictures for you. Bad photographs can actually do more damage than no photos at all.<\/p>\n

5. Proofread Your Menu<\/h2>\n

Nothing is more embarrassing to you and distracting to the potential customer than typos on the menu board. It might seem like a little thing, but it does matter. Remember, that we are all susceptible to typos. Our minds tend to see what we expect it to say and not what it actually says so that is why it is best to have extra pairs of eyes checking it for you. If a small mistake gets spread around social media, it can actually cost a lot of damage to your reputation.<\/p>\n

6. Stay Away From Fancy Fonts<\/h2>\n

Readability is the most important ingredient for creating your food truck menu board. Fancy fonts and calligraphy might seem fun and interesting, but what is the point if your customers can\u2019t understand what is on the board?<\/p>\n

7. Get Schooled on Menu Psychology<\/h2>\n

Psychologists have studied the design and wording to menus to center in on what makes a menu work or not work. Here are just a few psychology tips to consider when designing your menu board:<\/p>\n