Small Axe Truck (website, facebook, twitter, instagram) opened this morning in the parking lot beside Tandem Coffee and Bunker Brewing (aka the Bunker/Tandem Campus). Small Axe is the creation of Karl Deuben and Bill Leavy. It will be very interesting to see how they translate fine dining skills honed at Alinea, Hugo’s, Miyake, Back Bay Grill to a more informal and mobile platform.
After finishing up breakfast, Small Axe will drive around the corner to Rising Tide be the brewery’s featured food truck starting at noon.
It is amazing how all the food trucks use websites, facebook, twitter, instagram, etc. and yet are completely impossible to locate.
It’s 10 of 9pm on a Saturday night, I am hungry, decide to try one of our new food trucks and start trying to find out where Wicked Street kitchen is. I check their website, and their facebook and their twitter feed and I know where they were yesterday! But I have NO idea where they are now!
Alright, let’s try El Corazon. Again I check twitter, facebook etc, they apparently are taking of today. Well all of their social media doesn’t quite agree with each other, so I can’t tell if they are taking of just lunch today or both lunch and dinner, but it doesn’t matter because again I know where they were in the past, and have no idea where they are or might be now.
So then I remember there was another food truck, I decide to look for it here, and…. hoooray they are open for business! Let’s check their twitter feed:
Their latest tweet is a “Please and Thank you.” from 11 hours ago. Where are they now? No idea. Based on their website I might be able to find them for breakfast or lunch on Anderson and Congress. Based on their facebook I see lots of people asking how will we find you tomorrow. Are they ever anywhere else? No idea. Are they open for dinner, or will be opening for dinner? No idea.
It is amazing how much information all of the food trucks have and yet how NONE of it helps anyone find out where they are now.
If you are a food *truck*, you’d think job number one would be making it *certain* it is ridiculously easy to find your current location, or exactly when and where you will be next. You’d think that would *always* be your opening and closing twitter, website and fabebook update. It seems like such an obvious and easy thing to do!
Wow V., I totally agree…..Food trucks in Big Cities completely rely on social media….get it together Portland trucks!!
Food Truck GPS services like TruckSpotting and RoadStoves have been used to help solve this problem in other cities more seasoned in this business. Boston has gone so far as to make GPS’ a requirement for every truck.
Realistically though, all that’s needed is a tweet when they arrive and a tweet when they leave to let everyone know when/where they’ll be next. Twitter allows you to embed your current GPS location to help everyone find their way http://support.twitter.com/articles/122236-adding-your-location-to-a-tweet
These are all very valid and reasonable points that have been brought up.
Ironically, having never been an active participant in social media, I am now entering a business which depends on it. Our ability to effectively communicate via social media outlets is an acknowledged issue for us that we are striving to improve.
Up until this point we have been navigating the normal hurdles that accompany a new business and focusing on the quality of the food we intend to serve.
As we continue to develop our operations, stating the simple and important facts of location and times of service will be a consistent priority.
Meanwhile, to all of you who were able to find us.
Thank you.
And to those who endeavor to find us in the future. We will make it easier and worth your effort with quality food.
Sincere Thanks,
The SmallAxe Team
V. – thanks for your comments, I thought I was the only one having these difficulties. I’ve been trying to get to a specific truck for awhile now and tried asking quite specifically on Twitter and FB. No response and no post until they were setting up.
In large cities, I would think perhaps foot traffic provides more than enough business so they wouldn’t care so much? But here in Portland, I guess I don’t get it. Btw, overall I think El Corazon is one of the better in communicating their location and schedule. Other sites make assumptions like, “same place as last night”, or “running late (to some time I guess one should know)”.
My God I hate the “same place as last night”, or “running late” updates!
But I did find El Corazon *accidentally* once! And their food was great.
I am enjoying the Saturday Food Truck events at Rising Tide Brewing – an easy way (set schedule, lots of parking) to try the different vendors as well as the latest brews from RT. Very glad i got the last order of the pork belly from Small Axe on Saturday – it was superb.
One of the bigger issues this brings up is the regulations in the city for when and where food trucks can park. Currently they are only allowed in very designated areas until after 10 pm. This is also only if they can also find a parking space, and move it every two hrs. Some trucks have been able to lease private spots.
I would love to see the city actually lease spots to the trucks- and perhaps rotate a schedule for them. This way- as a consumer, you know if you go to the site- there will always be a food truck there. As a food truck owner, you have a place to park that is consistent.
Sarah, what spaces would you have the city lease to food trucks? They can operate anywhere a good cart can provided they meet the setbacks from other food vendors, fixed and mobile.
I really haven’t noticed that the food trucks I’ve eaten at have any trouble finding spaces, and regular spaces at that, to operate out of, ie El Corozon is down across from Rosemont Produce every Sunday I’ve come through that area.
And the City doesn’t ave a lot of space, particularly in the downtown core, that’s availible for leasing.