The number of customers a food truck can serve per day varies according to its location, menu, and service process; however, food trucks in the United States are known to serve between 80 and 120 customers every hour.
In most cities, it may only have a few customers during lunch hour, whereas food trucks in cities with a strong street food culture may have a steady flow of patrons all day. Food trucks in high-traffic areas could receive tens or hundreds of patrons each day. Starting a food truck business takes a lot of time.
Aside from worrying about not having enough food and consumables, you will also be required to figure out how much cash you will end up making each day.
To create an appropriate cash flow, you must consider seasonal peaks in your region in addition to other KPIs including profit margin. It is critical to determine your everyday capacity or the number of clients you will serve in a particular shift.
Food trucks that serve lunch open their panes around 11:00 a.m. or 11:30 a.m. and continue to operate for an average of three hours. When the line reduces, food truck owners begin wrapping their belongings and shuttering the truck. By 3:00 p.m., most food trucks had stashed food scraps, disposed of waste, and stored any devices that could not be left out.
A food truck business that is successful aspires to be very busy, mostly during lunch and dinner rushes. A good number of food trucks could expect 300-350 customers in a four-hour period, with two of those hours being lunch or dinner rush.
However, even in great food truck locations like Portland and DC, there will be slow times, albeit less slow than in other less crowded regions.
Factors That Will Determine the Number of Customers a Food Truck Gets Per Day
-
Location
You might have a few strategic areas in mind or at least an inkling of a few that you intend to utilize as frequent stops or locations. One of the viable ways to find out the number of walk-up customers you can expect is to put your potential business against existing mobile kitchens in those areas.
Comparing your business to established mobile restaurants in those locations is a possible way to determine how many walk-in patrons you can have.
Ensure to explore trucks that are comparable in size and food. Even though these establishments may switch around and become the main competitors, you can learn a lot by watching how many covers (number of meals) they end up serving all through peak hours.
-
Time required to serve customers
The next method for projecting your client count is to calculate the time it will take to prepare a dish for a client. Begin gauging from the time a customer places their order until the completion of the transaction.
Most times, the outcome will be determined by the number of employees available to finish the transaction, as well as the sort of recipes and how it is arranged. It can take up to ten minutes to fulfill an order for different types of food. Vendors who serve prepackaged meals can complete an order within two and three minutes.
After you have ascertained how easily you can handle one client, you can predict how many customers you can end up serving in an hour, a full shift, or a full day.
For instance, if it ends up taking 2 minutes to cook meals for a client during a peak period, you will be capable of serving 30 customers every hour, 60 customers for every three hours shifts, or 120 customers per day if you are available for two three-hour shifts.
-
Day of the week
The days of each week also affect sales; for instance –Thursday nights are more financially beneficial for food trucks than Monday nights. You should also differentiate your food sales from your beverage sales since every one of these items is calculated independently when determining how much to buy and maintain in inventory.
Unless you can park in central business districts with a great deal of footfall and ravenous workforce, lunch times normally bring in comparatively lower sales than dinner periods.
Conclusion
It is nearly impossible to predict how many customers your food truck will serve or attend to per day. However, experienced food truck workers or operators in your region can assist you in determining the type of traffic or sales volume to anticipate at various times of the year.
These estimates differ from truck to truck and are determined by your menu and position. After a few months of operation, you will have a better understanding of what to expect in terms of sales, and you will be able to adjust your projections appropriately.
If your revenues are not pairing with the forecasts in your business plan, you should reassess your processes and marketing efforts.