Scenarios/Food Truck Owner

Food Truck Owner

Taco preorders so you stop guessing how much to prep

A preorder form that closes Saturday morning so you know 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

1Collect

Create the preorder form with a webhook in one call

curl -X POST https://sutrena.com/api/pipeline \
  -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"]
      }
    ]
  }'

One call creates the preorder form. Query submissions via the API to get item counts and total orders. The response includes the formId needed for the next step.

2Form

Set the auto-close deadline so the form stops accepting orders Saturday morning

curl -X PUT https://sutrena.com/api/forms/frm_d4e5f6 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer st_live_k7xM9..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "closesAt": "2026-03-07T10:00:00-07:00"
  }'

The form now closes automatically Saturday at 10 AM, giving you an hour to prep before the market opens at 11.

What you get

  • A preorder form with 4 fields, created via sutrena_collect
  • An auto-close deadline set to Saturday 10 AM via a follow-up update
  • Submissions queryable via API to get total order count and item breakdown before you start prepping

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 the submissions API for free. Share the link on Instagram Stories on Wednesday, close it Saturday morning, pull the submissions to see your order totals, and start prepping. Next week, create a fresh form with the same fields and a new closesAt date. Automations can send each customer a confirmation email with their order details and pickup time the moment they submit a preorder.

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.

Can customers get an order confirmation?

Yes. Set up an automation triggered by form submission to send a confirmation email with the customer's order details and pickup time. They know exactly what they ordered and when to show up.

What is Sutrena?

Sutrena is the web runtime for AI agents. Forms, Pages, Analytics, Webhooks, Automations — all through 67 MCP tools and one REST API. Your agent creates web artifacts, humans interact with them, and your agent gets the data back. Use any one feature or all of them together.

Pages

Deploy HTML instantly

Forms

Collect structured data

Automations

DSL-based pipelines with 14 step types

Analytics

Privacy-first, no cookies

Webhooks

Slack, Discord, Telegram

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 anything — a page, form, automation, or analytics site

# Create a form
curl -X POST https://sutrena.com/api/forms \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer st_trial_xxx" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "waitlist", "fields": [{"name": "email", "label": "Email", "type": "email", "required": true}]}'

# Or deploy a page
curl -X POST https://sutrena.com/api/pages \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer st_trial_xxx" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"slug": "index", "title": "My Site", "html": "<h1>Live</h1>"}'

Ready to build?

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

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