Why Food Trucks Need to Stop Chasing Viral Menu Items

Last month, a truck that had been operating near Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester shut down. Just six months earlier, there had been a queue in front of it. The menu featured a rainbow cheese burger that looked straight out of TikTok. It was flashy, it photographed well, and a month later people forgot about it.

I don't personally know the person who ran that truck. But the trajectory is familiar. I've seen the same pattern play out multiple times while running a truck in Manchester. You go all in on a single viral menu item, ingredient costs skyrocket, and once the trend passes you're left with no regulars.

Why Chasing Trends Bleeds Money

Viral menu items almost always use expensive ingredients: specialty sauces, imported cheese, edible gold leaf. The cost per plate can easily exceed twice that of a regular menu item. A food truck isn't a restaurant. Refrigeration space is small, and leftover stock is an immediate loss.

The best-selling item on my truck, The Rolling Kitchen, is a Thai basil chicken rice bowl. The ingredients are simple: chicken, basil, chilli, garlic, and fish sauce. I source chicken and herbs directly from farms in the Greater Manchester area. The supply is stable, costs are predictable, and the flavour is consistent.

The biggest risk with a viral menu item is an unstable supply chain. You end up dependent on a handful of suppliers for specialty ingredients, with no bargaining power on price. A menu built around local produce makes it easy to switch suppliers and naturally adapt with seasonal ingredients.

Regulars Come from Trust, Not Novelty

On Saturday mornings, when I set up at Levenshulme Market, there are faces I always see. Those people aren't coming to try something new. They're coming back for the same taste they had last time. "The usual, please" is the best review I can get.

Once you've built up regulars, your sales don't bottom out even on rainy days. Anyone who knows what Manchester weather is like understands how important that is. Customers drawn in by a viral menu item won't show up when the weather is bad. They were never there for the food. They came to consume content.

A Smaller Menu Makes a Better Truck

My menu never exceeds five items. The benefits are clear:

• Less prep time means I can extend my operating hours
• Fewer types of ingredients means less waste
• Making the same dish hundreds of times raises the quality

This is exactly what I learned from Thai street food stalls. In Bangkok, a shop that has sold nothing but pad thai for 40 years gets listed in the Michelin Guide. Not because the menu has only one item, but because that one item has been refined to perfection.

I'm not saying ignore trends entirely. I test one or so new item each season myself. But my criterion isn't "Will this do well on TikTok?" It's "Can I get the ingredients reliably from my suppliers?"

Virality is over in a week. A good menu item survives the winter. The reason my truck has weathered four years of Manchester rain isn't a flashy menu. It's a single bowl of rice that tastes the same every day.