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PROVO — Have you ever wanted to eat at a food truck, but struggled to find one nearby?
Two Brigham Young University students’ new app is the latest attempt to make the search easier. Mobile Delicious aims to help both food truck owners and people who are hungry, according to co-creator Bryce Lund.
He came up with the idea with his friend, Brighton Kriser, shortly after they came home from serving missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about a year ago.
“When we got back, we started seeing all of these food trucks everywhere, and people would talk about them, but we never knew where they were,” he said. “So, we wanted to make something that would help us find them because right now the best way is just to look them up on Instagram and follow their page, but it isn’t really that great of a setup.”
While Mobile Delicious isn’t the first app designed for food trucks in Utah, Lund and his partner have high hopes. So far they’ve recruited vendors like Cubby’s, Mama Z’s, Bam Bam’s BBQ and Better Burger.
They’re working on signing up more food trucks for the service before marketing the app more broadly, which they plan to do in time for the beginning of BYU’s fall semester. So far Mobile Delicious has been downloaded about 500 times since it was released in the Apple app store about a month and a half ago, according to Lund.
The app shares basic details about the food trucks like their current location, menu and deals. Lund said it is easy for food truck owners to use because all they have to do is push a button and their phone will send a GPS location for the app to share. Another food truck app that has since discontinued its service reportedly required food truck owners to call in with their location every day.
Lund said working on the app has been a lot of fun. He built the app while his friend, Kriser, has been handling the business side of their company. Both got an early start in their fields, with Lund saying he has been building apps since he was little and Kriser being able to fund his mission with proceeds from a snow cone shack he ran in high school.
“We’ve always dreamed about making a cool little business, and this was a really fun idea we thought could take off and be something fun to do,” Lund said. “We’re glad we did it. It has been a fun little adventure getting it set up. It’s been tough, and we’ve learned a lot for sure, but we’re hoping to be able to continue learning and grow it.”
Contact the author at ncrofts@ksl.com or find her on Twitter.
