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Food Truck Tools

Food Truck Wait Time Board

A wait time board is a screen at the front of the line that tells customers how long they’ll wait before they order. Some vendors call it a wait time display or a wait time sign. This one is a web page rather than an app: a tablet facing the line shows the number, and your phone changes it from anywhere on the truck. It’s free and needs no account.

Open this page on the tablet and on your phone, then do the two steps below on each of them.

Anything you’ll remember, like your truck’s name. Letters, numbers and hyphens, up to 24 characters. It has to match on the tablet and the phone.

2. Tap to connect each screen

A tablet mounted in a food truck's service window showing a green screen with a large 8 and the words MINUTE WAIT
Our window at a stop. The tablet faces the line and shows the wait.
The phone remote: the current wait at the top, a grid of one-tap presets from 5 to 60 minutes, plus and minus buttons, and Be right back, Sold out and Closed buttons
The phone that sets it, from anywhere on the truck.
More about wait time boards

How this wait time display works

Two devices. A tablet, or any spare screen with a browser, faces the line and is the display. Your phone stays in your pocket and is the remote. Each one opens this page and picks its job. It’s for anywhere people line up for something made to order: food trucks and trailers, coffee carts, market stands, festival vendors, food-hall stalls and counter windows. A digital wait time sign on a tablet instead of a chalkboard, with no wait time app to install.

One code pairs them. Type the same code on both devices: letters, numbers and hyphens, up to 24 characters. Everything the phone sets, the tablet shows within about a second. Cellular on the phone and wifi or a hotspot on the tablet is fine; they don’t need to be on the same network.

The remote is a grid of presets from 5 to 60 minutes, one tap each, with plus and minus buttons for anything in between, from 0 up to 180. The number doesn’t count down. It isn’t a countdown or a service timer; it stays where you set it until a remote changes it, so the phone belongs with whoever knows the real wait. More than one phone can hold the remote, and the most recent tap wins.

The display shows the number at the height of the screen with MINUTE WAIT under it. Tap the screen once for fullscreen. Bookmark the page or add it to the home screen and each device remembers its code and job, so the tablet comes back up as the display and the phone as the remote. Brightness up and auto-lock off in the tablet’s settings before service.

What the colors mean

The display’s background is the message. Green for 10 minutes or less, yellow from 11 to 20, red from 21 up. Customers read the color before they read the number, so from across a lot they know whether to join the line before they can make out the digits.

Status screens use the same colors. BE RIGHT BACK is yellow. SOLD OUT and CLOSED are red, so a customer who only sees the color still gets the right answer. Raise the number early when you’re behind; a line told 25 minutes at 25 minutes is calm.

What this page stores and sends

On each device it saves the code, the role and the last wait time or status in the browser’s local storage. That’s how the tablet comes back as the display after a reboot and shows the last number before it’s reconnected.

Changes go through a public message relay, ntfy.sh, on a channel named after your code. Each message is the wait time or status and a timestamp. The relay keeps recent messages for around 12 hours, which is how a tablet that lost power catches up when it reconnects. Because the channel is named after the code, the code is the only thing that keeps strangers off your board. A code you’d give a coworker is enough. A code like “taco” is not.

Once a day, each device sends a short usage ping to our server: a hashed version of the code and whether it’s a display or a remote. It’s how we count how many boards are in use. It doesn’t include the wait time, the code itself, a location or anything about the device. Beyond that, one anonymous page view is counted when the page loads. The page sets no cookies and loads no trackers.

Common questions

Is the wait time board free?

Yes. There’s no paid tier and no account. We run a food truck and built it for our own window; it’s on this site so other vendors can use it.

Does it need wifi?

It needs an internet connection on both devices, and it doesn’t have to be wifi. The phone runs the remote on cellular. The tablet can use venue wifi or a hotspot from the phone. Each change is a few bytes, so a weak signal is enough.

Does it work on an iPad?

Yes, in Safari. Open the page, type the code, tap the display button, then tap the screen once for fullscreen. Adding it to the home screen from the share menu gives it an icon and a cleaner full-screen view. It also runs on Android tablets, Fire tablets with a browser, laptops and spare phones.

Can two people run the remote?

Yes. Any phone that types the same code becomes a remote. The most recent tap wins, and every remote shows the current value so both people can see what’s posted.

What happens if the tablet reboots or loses power?

It comes back as the display on its own, shows the last number it had saved, then reconnects and pulls the current value from the relay, which keeps about 12 hours of recent messages. If you reopen the page it remembers the code and role, so there’s nothing to re-enter.

Does it work offline?

Not fully. The display keeps showing the last number it received while it reconnects, and the remote retries a change three times before it tells you it couldn’t reach the tablet. Once either device is back online it catches up on its own.

Can I use it for a restaurant, a coffee stand or a market booth?

Yes. It’s one big number and three statuses on a screen, so it works for any counter with a line: coffee bars, bakeries, concession windows, farmers-market stands, food-hall stalls, festival tents. It isn’t a waitlist. It doesn’t take names or send texts, and it doesn’t know who’s in line.

Is there a limit on wait time, devices or boards?

The wait runs from 0 to 180 minutes. There’s no limit on how many phones or tablets share a code, and no limit on how many codes exist. Two trucks use two codes; one truck with two windows uses one.

Can someone else change my board?

Only if they know the code, because the code is the whole pairing. Choose something you’d give a coworker. A single common word is easy to guess. Change it if it gets out.

How is this different from a waitlist app, a queue timer or a now-serving board?

A waitlist app takes names and texts each party when it’s their turn. A now-serving or order-ready board is wired to a POS and shows order numbers. A service timer or queue timer counts one order or one ticket down from the moment it starts. This board holds one number for the whole line and only changes when a remote changes it, so people can decide whether to join.

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tap anywhere for fullscreen
Remote
offline
SHOWING NOW
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WAIT TIME (MINUTES)
STATUS