Carlos Medina runs Fuego Tacos, a food truck in Austin, TX. This is his first piece for The Useful Daily.
My wife and I started Fuego Tacos three years ago. For the first two years, picking where to park every day was basically a coin flip. We'd check the weather, think about what events were happening, and drive somewhere hoping for the best.
Some days we'd sell out by 1pm. Other days we'd come home with $40 worth of unsold food and the gas money wasted on driving to the wrong spot.
What changed
A friend of mine who runs a mobile detailing business told me he was using ChatGPT to analyze his best and worst days. I figured if it worked for car washing, maybe it could work for tacos.
I started by dumping three months of our daily data into a spreadsheet: location, day of week, weather, revenue, amount of food wasted. Then I asked ChatGPT to find patterns.
What the data showed
Some of this was obvious. Weekdays near office parks were better for lunch. Weekend nights near bars were good. No surprises there.
But some patterns I never would have noticed:
- Our best revenue days weren't the hottest days - they were days between 72 and 82 degrees. Above 85, people didn't want to stand in line outside.
- We did 40% better near construction sites on Fridays (payday) than any other day.
- Rain actually helped us at covered locations because other food trucks stayed home. Less competition.
- One specific neighborhood that I thought was "too residential" consistently outperformed downtown on Tuesday evenings.
Our system now
Every morning I check the weather and any local events, then ask ChatGPT: "Based on our data, where should we park today?" I give it the day, the weather forecast, and any known events.
It suggests a top-3 list of locations with estimated revenue for each. I pick one.
We're not running some fancy system. It's literally me typing into ChatGPT on my phone while my wife preps food.
The results
Over the last 4 months:
- Revenue up about 30% compared to the same period last year
- Food waste down by almost half
- We stopped going to two locations that the data showed were consistently bad (even though I had a "feeling" they were good spots)
The total cost
ChatGPT Plus: $20/month. That's it.
I don't use any other AI tools. I don't have an "AI strategy." I have a taco truck and a chat app that helps me decide where to park.
Sometimes that's all you need.
Carlos Medina can be found on Instagram @fuegotacosatx. His birria tacos are, in the opinion of this publication's editors, unreasonably good.