With a vision of increasing brand awareness for Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers in the South Florida marketplace—and the confidence that they offered some of the best burgers, hot dogs, custard and fries in the category—franchisee Cash Shelton set out to take his delicious food on the road. True to the last bite, the Food Truck lives up to the Freddy’s motto: “The Neighborhood Just Got Tastier.”
Shelton was confident that, “If we could just make the food more accessible, we could help grow our brick and mortar stores.” So with support from Freddy’s corporate offices, the Freddy’s Food Truck came to life.
Built to spec for Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, you’ll find the same kitchen equipment inside the spotless stainless steel interior as in the stores. Freddy’s Food Truck uses the same grill and fryer—and the same complete SpeedLine point of sale system.
“This helps keep training to a minimum and reliability to a maximum,” says Shelton.
To allow for major production in a minor space, Freddy’s Food Truck enjoys home base privileges at one of the brick and mortar stores, which allows them to hold extra food in the walk-in and use space in the kitchen to prep before an event.
While food truck operators typically take orders with a notepad and pen, the idea of paper tickets floating about in the truck during a high pressure event didn’t fly with Shelton. To keep business flowing and customers happy, he knew they needed a point of sale system.
“At events,” Shelton says, “we have found speed to be the key to being invited back and keeping the guest happy. If they want to feed 200 people a cooked-to-order burger and fries with a dessert, we can do that in just over an hour.”
Shelton adds, “When multiple trucks are present we move the line quicker and more efficiently than most. Without a full point of sale and five kitchen display screens, we couldn’t do that.”
With years of experience using SpeedLine point of sale in his franchise company’s Pizza Hut locations, Shelton felt it was a natural fit for the new Freddy’s truck.
Adapting the POS to the food truck involved some special considerations. For speed and ease of production, they pared down the menu, fitting everything nicely on two screens. The technology setup in the truck includes an integrated kitchen display system to speed up order processing and avoid the risk of paper tickets blowing around the compact kitchen. Networking is no different than in the store, using a 3G modem for connectivity and Dell touchscreens with a built in battery.
Shelton also loves that the SpeedLine POS software easily handles sales tax differences for events in different counties, and they can create custom pricing for different events in minutes. On top of that, automatic tender rounding at the POS also means that they never have to carry coins on the truck to make change.
With the Freddy’s Food Truck operational and visiting various charity and community functions, the team soon came to realize there would be additional prep requirements that would challenge the current in-store model.
“We quickly learned that it takes a lot of prep and time to get the truck ready for an event, and even more to clean it up afterwards,” Shelton says. “This has limited us to only considering events that produce more than $750 in sales in a one- to two-hour time period.”
The spark that started this operation is still burning strong, and the Freddy’s team is excited to attend upcoming functions. With a fully functional kitchen and high-speed order processing system in place, they are a growing favorite at local events.
