Scenarios/Food Truck Owner

Food Truck Owner

Taco preorders so you stop guessing how much to prep

A preorder form that closes Saturday morning and a prep dashboard that tells you exactly what to make.

Free tierUpdated March 2026

The situation

You park at a weekly farmers market every Saturday. Some weeks you sell out of birria by noon and turn people away. Other weeks you toss 30 veggie bowls. The problem is not the food -- it is guessing demand. You want people to preorder before you fire up the grill so you know exactly how many of each item to prep.

What they said

I need people to preorder tacos before I show up at the market on Saturday

What the agent builds

1Form

Create a preorder form with name, phone, menu items, pickup time, and an auto-close deadline

curl -X POST https://sutrena.com/api/forms \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer st_live_k7xM9..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "Saturday Market Preorder",
    "fields": [
      { "name": "name", "type": "text", "required": true },
      { "name": "phone", "type": "phone", "required": true },
      {
        "name": "items",
        "type": "multiselect",
        "required": true,
        "options": [
          "Birria Tacos x3",
          "Al Pastor x3",
          "Veggie Bowl",
          "Horchata"
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "pickup_time",
        "type": "select",
        "required": true,
        "options": ["11 AM", "12 PM", "1 PM"]
      }
    ],
    "closesAt": "2026-03-07T10:00:00-07:00"
  }'

A preorder form that accepts orders all week and automatically closes Saturday at 10 AM, giving you an hour to prep before the market opens at 11.

2Dashboard

Create a prep dashboard with item counts and total orders

curl -X POST https://sutrena.com/api/dashboards \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer st_live_k7xM9..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "Saturday Prep Dashboard",
    "formId": "frm_d4e5f6",
    "version": 1,
    "widgets": [
      {
        "type": "metric_card",
        "title": "Total Orders",
        "aggregate": "count"
      },
      {
        "type": "bar_chart",
        "title": "Items to Prep",
        "groupBy": "items"
      }
    ]
  }'

A dashboard you check Saturday morning. One glance tells you: 22 orders total, 18 birria, 14 al pastor, 9 veggie bowls, 16 horchatas. You prep exactly what you need and waste nothing.

What you get

  • A preorder form with 4 fields and an auto-close deadline set to Saturday 10 AM
  • A prep dashboard with total order count and a bar chart breaking down items to prep

Why this works

Square and Toast have preorder features, but they cost $60+/month and lock you into their payment stack. You just need to know what to cook -- not process payments at order time. Sutrena gives you a form and a dashboard for free. Share the link on Instagram Stories on Wednesday, close it Saturday morning, check the dashboard, and start prepping. Next week, create a fresh form with the same fields and a new closesAt date. An agent could set this up end-to-end — create the form, configure the deadline, and deploy a dashboard — in a single conversation.

FAQ

Can I reuse the same form every week?

You can update the closesAt date on the existing form to reopen it for next Saturday. Or create a new form each week if you want clean submission counts. The free tier gives you 10 projects, and you can delete old ones to make room.

What if someone tries to order after the deadline?

Once closesAt passes, the form shows a closed message. No more submissions come through. You can customize the closed message to say something like 'Preorders are closed -- come find us at Booth 12 at the market!'

Can I add payment collection to the form?

Sutrena forms collect order data, not payments directly. But you can embed a Stripe Buy Button, PayPal Payment Link, or similar payment widget on a Sutrena page alongside your form. Most food truck owners prefer to collect payment at pickup anyway. If you need online payment, either embed a payment button on your Sutrena page (see /guides/payment-on-pages) or send a Venmo/Zelle request after receiving the preorder.

What is Sutrena?

Sutrena is the web runtime for AI agents. Three primitives — pages, forms, and dashboards — accessible through one API. Your agent creates web artifacts, humans interact with them, and your agent gets the data back. Framework-agnostic. Works from any MCP client or HTTP client.

Get started in two API calls

1. Get a trial key (no auth, no signup)

curl -X POST https://sutrena.com/api/trial

2. Create a form + dashboard from a template

curl -X POST https://sutrena.com/api/forms \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer st_trial_xxx" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"templateId": "waitlist", "createDashboard": true}'

Ready to build?

Tell your AI agent what you need. It handles the rest.

Food Truck Owner: Taco Preorders That Close Automatically -- Sutrena | Sutrena