What’s in a name? Quite a bit if you’re in the food truck business in 2022. After all, the name of your truck will play an important role in formulating that critical first impression with potential customers. When someone hears about your food truck they immediately form opinions about the cuisine on your vehicle, your personality, and other ideas on what it might actually be like to dine at your mobile restaurant.
Still struggling to find a name for your food truck? This article should help you with some real-world suggestions that haven’t already been claimed. We’ll share a few ways you can be strategic about how to name your food truck and share examples of businesses that employ similar methods to title their own business. Ready for a landslide of food truck name ideas? Let’s do this!
- Tell People What You Serve
- Ice Cream Truck Names
- BBQ Truck Names
- Mexican Truck Names
- Grilled Cheese Truck Names
- Dessert Truck Names
- Burger Truck Name Ideas
- Funny Food Truck Names
- Lebanese Food Truck Names
- Food Truck Names for Chicken
- Food Truck Names for Sandwiches
- Terrible Names to Avoid
Tell People Exactly What You Serve
Prospective customers will make prompt decisions about whether or not to eat at your stand. In fact, many will invest less than a couple second determining where to invest their lunch dollars. Make sure you don’t select a name that confuses people. One way to ensure people are clear what you do is to name your food truck after the featured nearby item. It’s simple, but it works. Here’s what we mean.
A couple businesses that have pulled this off successfully include The Grilled Cheese Truck, a franchise based out of Southern California, and The Bacon Truck out of Boston. When you hear or read these names there’s nothing ambiguous about it. You know exactly what you’re getting into when you visit these trucks. It might be obvious, but there are plenty of examples of food trucks successfully using strategy to name their truck. As long as your able to execute well on the food item of choice this can be a simple and effective way to come up with a name.
Personality
Another way to grab attention for your truck is to express a bit of your personality. One of the best (in our opinion) in the business at this is Hey!… You Gonna Eat or What? based in Austin, Texas. I mean seriously… When you hear this name you’re pretty much obligated to at least look at the menu.
Of course, Hey!… You Gonna Eat or What? is much more than just a catchy name. They’ve won numerous food truck competitions based on the quality of their food as well. A catchy name can help capture the imagination of a potential customer, but the food is what’s going to keep them coming back.
While it’s helpful to add a jolt of personality into your truck, you want to be aware of how people perceive you. Not everyone has the sense of humor and you certainly don’t want to come up with a name that’s offensive to some people. If you have a name that’s too far out there you’ll have a tough time vending at family-friendly events like fairs or festivals.
Get Nostalgic
Nostalgia is a power emotional tool. It has the power to take us back to the simpler times of our youth or depending on who you talk to bring back bad memories of high school they’d rather forget.
But, if you can find a way to tap into nostalgia appropriately it can lead to a powerful promotional advantage. Take for example Motley Crews Heavy Metal Grill based out of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, who have capitalized on the power of 80s rock to help capture the imagination of their fans. I’m personally waiting for that special someone to come out with a Backstreet Boys inspired food truck to relive my high school glory days.
Use a Name Generator
Finally, in case you haven’t heard, there’s this thing called Google that can really help you with a lot of stuff. After a quick search, we here at the FoodTruckEmpire team found that there are a lot of different online tools that will (almost) automatically come up with a memorable brand name without the need for any imagination. Why waste time trying to be clever when you don’t have to?
Finally, while it certainly helps to understand branding in food truck space, you’ve still got to get the basics right if you want to be successful longterm. Serve great food and make sure you can get that product out the window fast. And if you’re really serious about starting a food truck, be sure to check out this article on writing a business plan. It’s one of the most important steps you can take to set yourself up for success.
Ice Cream Truck Name Ideas
Mister Softee ice cream truck.
The ice cream truck is a staple of the suburban America of yesteryear. This is the ideal business to use the nostalgic naming approach described earlier in the piece. When we think of the ice cream man, we think of simpler times back in the day. Here are a few ideas that could work well:
- The Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Cart
- 2 Scoops
- 32 Below
- A Bit Nutty Ice Cream
- A La Mode
- Alphabet Scoop
- Authentic Delicacy
- Cherry on Top
- Classic Cream’s
- Dairy Goddess
- Dipsy Do’s Softserve
- Dream Cones
- Freezing Point Ice Cream
- FrostBite
- Frozen Hour
- Frozen Spoon
- Fuel Up Ice Scoop
- Full Tilt Ice Cream
- Happy Cones
- Heritage Novelty Desserts
- I Scream, You Scream
- Ice Cream Artisans
- Ice Cream CONEction
- Ice Cream Island
- Ice Creamistry
- Ice galaxy
- Ice House
- Ice Queen
- Jealous Gelato
- Kreamology Lab
- Lick Point
- Nostalgia on a Stick
- Pittsburgh Ice Cream Company
- Queen Bee Ice Cream
- Rocky Road
- Rolling Retro Pops
- Scoop Bus
- Scoops for Me
- Scoops n’ Smiles
- Secret Sprinkles
- Simpler Time’s Ice Cream
- Snow Station
- Sprinkles Ice Cream
- Sundae Funday
- Swirl Station
- The Drippity Cone
- The Ice Cream Shuffle
- The Waffle Cone
- Three Twins Ice Cream
- Timeless Memories Treats
- Twist on Wheel
- Utterly Delicious Ice Cream
- Way Back Treats
- What’s the Scoop?
- WTF Ice cream Truck
BBQ Truck Name Ideas
BBQ is another timeless mobile food menu. Hundreds of years before the modern food truck movement became a thing, people have been smoking and grilling meats in all sorts of mobile environments and pits.
There are dozens of competitive BBQ teams using a smoked butt puns right now. This type of truck just more easily lends itself to that sort humor. Here are a few suggestions to consider for a competitive BBQ team.
- American BBQ Co.
- BBQ Truckr
- Big Daddies BBQ
- Brazillian BBQ
- Chubbies BBQ
- Frontier Barbeque
- Fuelled BBQ Co.
- Full Metal Grill
- Gorilla BBQ
- Great British BBQ
- Grill On Wheels
- Grilled Meats Co.
- Harry’s Happening BBQ
- Hotbox BBQ
- Jacked BBQ Co.
- Lucy’s Finger Lickin’ Barbecue
- Madeline’s Meat Magic
- Mobile BBQ Co.
- Mobile Meat Eatery
- Momma’s Big Rack
- Nomadic Grill
- Oink Oink BBQ
- Pete’s Amazing BBQ
- Ray’s Legendary Chicken Wings
- Ribs To Roll
- Rocking Ribs
- Rolling Brazilian BBQ
- Rolling Smokey
- Route 99 Grill
- Sizzle On Wheels
- Slow Smoked Buttz
- Smoke Wagon
- Smokies BBQ
- Southern Sisters BBQ
- Spitfire Grill
- Spit-Roast Truck Co.
- Steve’s Steller Que
- Sticky Fingers
- Sunshine BBQ
- T-Bone Trucker
- The BBQ Bus
- The BBQ Truck
- The Brisket Bus
- The Grill Father
- The Meat Wagon
- The Mobile Grill
- The Pit Stop
- The Sizzled grill
- Urban BBQ
Mexican Food Truck Name Suggestions
Mexican food truck.
The taco truck have been around since before food trucks were even cool. Tacos are the perfect street food with a hard or soft-shell delivery method to transport food from truck to hand to mouth.
- A Hint of Tequila
- Back in Black Burrito
- Bobs Burritos
- Burrito Bus Co.
- Carla’s Catina
- Chilli on Wheels
- Driving South of the Border
- Esposito’s Burritos
- Fernando’s Food Truck
- Flying Fish Tacos
- Full Metal Tacos
- Guac N Roll
- Gus’s Mexican Truck
- Holy Guacamole
- Jose’s Jalapeño Bites
- Latin Sunrise
- Mad Mex
- Mexican grill
- Mexican Street Food
- Miguel’s Mexican
- Nacho’s Tacos Truck
- Packing Al Pastor
- Ramos Taco’s
- Rollin’ Burritos
- Rolling Guacamole
- Rolling Through Mexico
- Salsa Shack
- Salsa Street Grill
- Taste of Mexico
- Texas Taco Co.
- Tex-Mex Grill
- The Chilli Truck
- The Crunchy Taco
- The Happy Taco
- The Little Mexican
- The little Sombrero
- The Mexican Wrap
- The Nomadic Burrito
- The Nomadic Taco
- The Organic Burrito
- The Taco Trailer
- The Taco Truck
- The Tantalizing Taco
- The Taquero Truck
- The Tortilla Truck
- Tijuana Food Truck
- Tortilla Trucker
- Tostadas Truck
- Tuco’s Taco’s
- Vegan Burrito Bus
- Victor’s Victory Tacos
Grilled Cheese Food Truck Names
Grilled cheese.
For whatever reason, grilled cheese is a fun food. Maybe it’s because it’s a food associated with childhood? We may never know the answer, but this staple lunch or dinner option is the ideal product to serve from a mobile unit.
- 90s Melts
- A Taste of Home Grilled Cheese
- All American Grilled Cheese
- All Weather Cheddar
- Almost Grown Up Grilled Cheese
- Back in The Day Grilled Cheese
- Better Cheddar
- Big Ham and Cheese
- Cheese Grill
- Cheese IN Toast
- Cheese on Toast Cart
- Childhood Melts
- Choosey Cheddar
- Daily Comforts Grilled Cheese
- Dessert Food Truck Names
- Fat Al’s Grilled Cheese
- Gooey Gourmet
- Gourmet Grilled Cheese
- Grilled Cheddar
- Grilled Cheese Gals
- Grilled Cheese Grinders
- Grilled Grinders
- Italian Grilled Cheese Van
- Lil’ Cheese Grill
- Mac and Grilled Cheese
- Melted Memories
- Melted Slices
- Mobile Melt Truck
- Momma’s Grilled Cheese
- Mouth Melters
- Philly Cheese Co.
- Retro Grilled Cheese
- Rolling Cheddar
- Say Cheese Please
- Say Cheese!
- Simpler Time’s Melts
- Sweet Cheese
- Swiss Melts
- The Cheese Station
Related Reading: 57 Rib-Tickling Thai Restaurant Name Ideas List
- The Cheesey Collective
- The Grilled Cheese Factor
- The Grilled Cheese Man
- The Mean Cheese Grill
- The Mega Melt