New phone app aims to connect food truck owners with customers
Food trucks may be gaining popularity in El Paso, but it can be a challenge finding where the mobile restaurants are set up on a daily basis.
That can be a daunting challenge for new food trucks, like the one that belongs to Robyn Renner: Red, White & Chew.
“This is what we call a pie pocket,” said Renner, as she folded handmade dough across marinara sauce topped with mozzarella cheese, lamb, red onions and tzatziki sauce.
Renner has been driving her truck around El Paso for three months, parking every Wednesday alongside the Raynolds Street overpass at Alberta, outside Texas Tech Health Sciences Center in Central El Paso.
“We’ve gotten really good response,” Renner said.
It helps that her truck rotates to the same locations weekly.
“Currently, if you try to figure out where a food truck is, first of all, you have to know it exists,” Andreas Jantos, president of El Paso-based marketing company Spectrum Solutions, pointed out to ABC-7 during a recent interview.
Jantos said his goal is to help truck owners and customers find each other easily. That’s one reason why Spectrum created the smartphone application Food Chasers. The free app acts like a directory, showing where all the food trucks are in your area. Jantos said, as of two weeks ago, more than 20 food truck owners had registered their businesses with the site.
“From a owner’s perspective, you’re capable of saying you’ve ‘landed. They can push one button and populate the food truck at that GPS location,” Jantos explained. “And as a customer, if you’re putting that food truck as a favorite, you’ll get notified that your favorite food truck just has landed so you know where they are.”
Renner said she already registered her truck on the website.
“This is just another avenue that people can find where all the food trucks are,” she said. “I suggest to everyone to get the app.”
Spectrum Solutions told ABC-7 Wednesday, the app will be available for Apple and Android phones through their respective online stores next week.
Food truck owners can register with the app at foodchasersapp.com.
