When making food at your cidery isn’t an option, having the choice of inviting a food truck to pair with your brand is a great opportunity to help keep customers longer at your tasting room.
Fenceline Cider hosts a truck at the tasting room almost every Friday and Saturday night.
“We also bring them in for special events,” said Sam Perry. “I like them because it allows me to stay focused on making and selling cider without having to manage a kitchen.”
The trucks come in the afternoon and leave in the evening and there is no obligation or strings attached, he said.
“Down the road we might open something of our own but I like this food truck model a lot,” Perry said.
Having been open in Delaware for several years, Harvest Ridge Winery, which is the sister company of Rebel Seed Cider, now has most trucks contact it. The winery/cidery works with several regular trucks where it has established solid relationships.
“Our customers know them and they have been reliable,” said Social Media Manager Sofia Horvath. “We can count on them to show on the agreed upon days/times and our customers come out for the food.”
At the newer Chester County, Pennsylvania location, the process sort of had to start over.
“[We] have had to do some digging to begin to establish those relationships,” Horvath said. “We want to support local trucks and like the idea of supporting newer trucks so we can grow our businesses together.”
Since Spoke and Spy Ciderworks serves cider and some of its consumers may be gluten free or vegan, Ronald Sansone said he does try to make sure that the trucks the cidery book s offer options that those customers will appreciate.
Cindy Landi pointed out that Colorado’s St. Vrain had some offers from food trucks to be available, but the cidery has also had to work to establish those relationships.
“Several trucks have reached out to us as they’ve gotten off the ground and some we see around at other breweries or office centers and we reach out to them,” she said. “The trucks we work with have always been great about work with us to be there during a time that will best support both our businesses.”
St. Vrain has food trucks approximately four days a week and most are set up for 4-5 hours per visit.
“We do find that having a food truck is great for business and they are typical there within the first hour we are open and until the hour before we close,” Landi said. “They typically will stay later if they still have food to sell and we are busy.
“We also let folks bring in their own food or have food delivered to the taproom if we do not have a food truck.”
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