Your griddle's hot, the onions are going, and your phone won't stop buzzing. It's the same three words every time: "Where you today?" You love that people care. You just can't answer forty of them while you're prepping and still flip the sign on time.
Here's what it costs when nobody gets a fast answer. A regular who can't find you by 11:30 isn't going to drive around Providence hunting for you. She grabs a slice, or she follows the truck that already posted, and your line is shorter than it should be for no reason other than people guessed wrong.
The fix is one message, sent once, that lands everywhere your people already look. Same spot, same hours, a special or two, out the door before the rush. You can tee it up the night before or tap send when you open. Either way, you stop repeating yourself and your crowd stops guessing.
The morning guessing game is quietly expensive
Think about a normal Tuesday. You might park on Kennedy Plaza, pull up outside a brewery on the West Side, or chase an event all the way down to Newport. Your spot changes, and that's the whole problem: the people who want you most are the ones who don't know where you landed.
Every unanswered "where are you?" is a small leak. One person drifts off. Another checks your feed, sees yesterday's post still sitting on top, and figures you're parked where you were last week. Multiply that across a season and you've handed real money to the trucks next to you.
One message, every channel
A daily broadcast is one short post that goes to several places at the same time: your text list, your Instagram, your Facebook, maybe a quick Google Business update. You write it once, and the tool pushes it everywhere so you don't open five apps at 10 AM.
The piece that does the heavy lifting is the text list, technically an SMS broadcast (one message delivered to everyone who opted in). Texts get read in minutes, not hours, and they land while someone's deciding what to do for lunch. Social posts are great for reach, but a text catches the person who already loves you and just needs the address.
Honest caveat: texting comes with rules. People have to opt in, every message needs an easy way to reply STOP and be done, and you shouldn't blast more than once or twice a day. Treat the list like a standing favor to your regulars, not a megaphone, and folks stay subscribed.
What actually goes in the post
Keep it to a glance. Someone reading at a red light should get the whole thing in two seconds.
- The spot. Name and a pin. "Parked at Kennedy Plaza, pin below" beats a paragraph of directions.
- The hours. Start and end, plain. "11 to 2, or till we sell out."
- A reason to hurry. One special, a sellout warning, the thing people drive for. "Short rib special, we made 40."
- A pin or link. A geotag (a map marker that opens their phone's maps app) saves everyone the back and forth.
That's the whole thing. Skip the life story. If you've got a photo of today's special, add it, but the words should stand on their own for the person who keeps images turned off.
Build the list that makes this work
A broadcast is only as good as who's on it, so collecting numbers is the real project. Good news: you already talk to your best customers every single day, right at the window.
- Tape a little sign to the window: "Text TRUCK to our number, know where we are before you leave the house."
- Have whoever's taking orders mention it once, lightly. "Want the daily spot texted to you?" Most regulars say yes.
- Drop the signup link in your Instagram bio and your Google listing so new fans can join from the couch.
- Seed it on day one with the folks already in your phone who'd genuinely want it, and only those folks.
Figure it grows slow and steady, and that's fine. A hundred real regulars who open every text beat a thousand randoms who muted you weeks ago. The quality of the list is the whole game.
Night before, or the moment you open
Two ways to run this, and you'll probably lean on both. Schedule tomorrow's post tonight once you've locked the next day's location, say around 9 PM after the plan's set. It goes out on its own at 10 AM while you're still loading the truck.
Days the plan shifts, send live instead. You pull up, confirm the spot's open, and tap once so it fires to every channel at the same moment. That live send is your safety net for the mornings a street fair or a tow truck rearranges your route, and Rhode Island summer being what it is, that happens plenty.
Worth doing this week
You don't need the whole system by Friday. You need the first few dominoes, and they're small.
- Pick one tool that sends a text broadcast and posts to your socials at once. Most run under $100 a month for a list your size.
- Make the window sign today. A piece of tape and a marker counts. "Text TRUCK for today's spot."
- Write your post template once: spot, hours, special, pin. Fill in the blanks each morning instead of starting from scratch.
- Send one real broadcast this week, even to twenty people, and watch whether the line shows up already knowing where you are.
Get that loop turning and the morning goes quiet. The question answers itself before anyone has to ask it, and if wiring it up is the part you keep putting off, RI AI Agency sets this kind of thing up for local trucks in about an afternoon. Either way: post it once, and go cook.