Frustration with local food truck scene

I could make a website for this. Basically follow the food truck twitter accounts and when they post a location and time, stick it on a calendar. Then customers just log into one website and see where all the food trucks are at that time. No one has to manage the site and the food trucks don't have to log into anything to manage a schedule, they just tweet where they are.

Would anyone be interested in this?

Will you somehow scrape the content of the tweet for time info, or just go by the timestamp of the tweet? I ask because trucks will often post a day or two in advance announcing where they'll be at some later date.

Yeah exactly, just subscribe to the trucks twitter feed and scrape each one for dates and times. If it doesn't contain that data, ignore it. So if they tweet contained "5/30 12-3pm" i could look for that and then add the tweet to the calendar. If i actually got it working i could just let the food truck know, hey if you include this data in your tweet it will show up on my website for your customers to see. Easy.

Its not perfect solution but makes for an interesting experiment.

A centralized scheduling hub would be an exceptional idea, but it would be a logistical nightmare to try to organize and consolidate. Trucks with a set schedule/location would be easy, but trucks that move around a lot or only do events would be a challenge. Just getting the information from the owners would be a full time job. (as most operators are busy just trying to conduct the basic tenets of their business).

Still a great idea if someone had the time and money to do it.

Me no undertandy tweets and twits and whatnot. It's enough for me to check my email and post here.

I understand why one might think that, but it actually would not be a logistical nightmare, and it wouldn't take much technical skill to pull off. It's a very simple database, with a very simple input GUI, and could easily refresh live for any particular client (people wanting to see the info). The only struggle is in getting the actual people using it to do it. I wrote something like this a few years ago for events. You'd be surprised the % of people who just wouldn't open their app (or web page), and type in where they were going to be (or, for future scheduling, select a date).

Either way, I unfortunately have less free time than I have anything else, so it's not something I can do, but it is less than a day's worth work, IMO, for an even marginal programmer, so it's likely you'd be able to find someone to do it.

I could make a website for this. Basically follow the food truck twitter accounts and when they post a location and time, stick it on a calendar. Then customers just log into one website and see where all the food trucks are at that time. No one has to manage the site and the food trucks don't have to log into anything to manage a schedule, they just tweet where they are.

Would anyone be interested in this?

Will you somehow scrape the content of the tweet for time info, or just go by the timestamp of the tweet? I ask because trucks will often post a day or two in advance announcing where they'll be at some later date.

Yeah exactly, just subscribe to the trucks twitter feed and scrape each one for dates and times. If it doesn't contain that data, ignore it. So if they tweet contained "5/30 12-3pm" i could look for that and then add the tweet to the calendar. If i actually got it working i could just let the food truck know, hey if you include this data in your tweet it will show up on my website for your customers to see. Easy.

Its not perfect solution but makes for an interesting experiment.

You should be able to do that relatively easily, though, again, however it's done, the struggle will actually be with how infrequently people (the food truck operators) will actually do it. Some of our local food trucks, if I wanted to know where they'd be, I'd have to either call them or message them on Facebook. Seems like a super strange way to run a business!

Thats why I thought the twitter integration would be good. No apps, no logins, just send a damn tweet. I mean how hard is that. But...you're right they probably still won't do it lol.

[Robin Garr]

I still feel like I'm in a room with a lot of guys speaking English (me, too) in a place where the common language is Berzerkistani or something.

I suspect that most food truck operators work like this: They find a place to park in a busy location. The truck IS the advertisement. The truck IS the publicity. People see it, people come and eat. Some of them Tweet because it's essentially the equivalent of texting, the easiest possible way to reach a crowd of people who want to follow you.

Go to a Website? Enter information? I don't see most food-truck operators finding much value in that.

But I'm just ranting. Push on. If one or more of you come up with something awesome, I will definitely support it and publicize it. But I really do wonder how many food truck operators really care about stuff like this. They park, they get traffic, they stay busy, they sell out. Where is the problem here?

Jason, if you or someone else writes the program to do it I'll help by keeping after the food truck owners to post the tweets! Maybe we can actually make this work.

FYI the C-J already developed the app you're discussing. Trucks, locations on a map.

FYI the C-J already developed the app you're discussing. Trucks, locations on a map.

How do you find it? Do the trucks keep it up-to-date at all? Is it easy for the trucks to enter the information?

Of course if you need a subscription to the CJ to use it it's useless because so few people have subscriptions these days.

FYI the C-J already developed the app you're discussing. Trucks, locations on a map.

I looked at a couple of these sites yesterday, none of them seemed to be working correctly.

If its an app, personally I think that would be less successful even if they have it functioning. People already have too many apps for everything. Its just easier to just check a website at your computer.

I know it's day of, but at least 4-5 trucks are already lined up this morning on the East side of Humana Waterfront - Brook Street between Washington and Witherspoon.

Definitely saw Traveling Kitchen, Lexi Lu's, Boss Hogs BBQ and Ramiros

I've made a little progress on this, I created an application and I have it reading user twitter feeds and I can parse the date out of a tweet.

I'm thinking about the interface though...its a little tricky. Couple of problems with using a calendar. One, if there are 10 (or more) food trucks listed at a certain day/time the calendar is just going to look like a mess. So I thought, OK maybe the calendar could just be used to click a date/time the user is looking for and then show where the trucks will be on a map that day. That would be great...except we all know the truck owners aren't going to keep up with posting a schedule far enough in advance to be of any real use.

I think what I may do for a first go at this is just try and pull the location data out of the tweet and stick it on a map. The idea being, you are hungry for lunch, let me check the site and just see where the trucks are right now. If one is close, great, if not you can make other plans.

Yes, indeed. It is frustrating for those who really want this to happen as is evident in this thread.
But its got me thinking. How long will it be before the corporate wonks enter into the foodtruck fray?

They will have accessible and reliable schedules, consistant, standardized food, and brand recognition. So when the Quedoba or Bob Evans truck is roaming the festivals, John and Suzy Schmuck, who tend to gravitate towards suburban style familiarity, will be grateful to see that relief is at hand. They will even be able to visit the corporate websites for schedules, coupons, sales, and free toys for the kids!

Just sharing some thoughts bouncing around in my head.......

James, don't forget that White Castle, Papa John's and Mark's Barbecue all also have food trucks operating in the Louisville market and there may even be more.

A year ago I would have been beating this drum, too. However, this spring there are so many more food trucks out that I'm pretty happy going with pot luck. I work near 1st and Washington, and, counting the hot dog stand, most days there are now 7 trucks out by the Humana building. I just go see what's out there and I am not disappointed

[Robin Garr]

I just go see what's out there and I am not disappointed

Yeah, that's really how the food truck scene is supposed to work. A lot of folks want to force it into a more familiar box, but I think most food-truck operators instinctively understand that all those schemes represent poor ROI from their standpoint. Just take potluck and go!