BB-INT008 — Priya Sharma

Probably two to three times a week. [laughs] I know that sounds like a lot. There's a truck near my office in the design district. Lunch is solved when I know that truck is around. I'm basically a regular — the person at the window knows my order.

It depends on the day. I always get the smoked brisket as a baseline. Sometimes I'll add the Korean-style chicken or the plant-based option if I'm going lighter. The salsa verde is the thing — I put it on everything. If they ever took that off I'd be upset.

The first time was just — the food looked incredible and I filmed it without thinking about it. The video of me opening the wrapper and taking the first bite got way more engagement than I expected. Something about the visual of it — the steam, the colour of the ingredients. It hits on TikTok.

The second time I did a more intentional "best lunch spots near X neighbourhood" video where I included them. That one's been shared more widely. I've had people comment asking for the location.

The brand account commented on the second one — a short, friendly response. The local truck account reposted my story when I tagged them. Which I appreciated. It felt like a real response, not a bot.

If there was something new to show. The menu is fairly consistent, which is good for quality and for my lunch choices, but it doesn't give me a reason to post again unless I'm just doing the same content. When they release a new item or a seasonal special, that's a natural moment. The Fuego Nights summer thing — I posted that day when I saw the limited menu. New and limited creates urgency. Standard menu doesn't.

It would depend entirely on how they did it. If it was a "we'd like you to post about us in exchange for free food" thing, I'd probably say no — my following isn't big enough that gifted content is worth diluting the organic feel for. If they said "we're doing a creator day, come try the new menu before it launches, no obligation to post but here's what's happening" — that I'd find interesting. It respects that my audience trusts me, and it doesn't make me feel like a billboard.

Real moments. Ugly food that tastes good. First bites. Reactions that aren't performed. The food content that does really well on TikTok is not the Instagram aesthetic shot — it's the "oh my god this is good" moment filmed in natural light with not a lot of production. BorderBlend's food actually photographs naturally well without trying too hard. The textures, the colours. It's TikTok-native content without them having to work at it.

What they should do — and I don't know if they do this — is encourage franchisee-level TikTok content from the trucks themselves. Like, the person making the brisket posting a day-in-the-life. That kind of authentic, behind-the-scenes content is what drives algorithm performance right now.

The app. I downloaded it once to try ordering ahead. The ordering experience was clunky — I couldn't tell which trucks were currently open, the menu wasn't updated to match what was actually on the board that day, and the estimated wait time was off by about ten minutes. I went back to just walking up. I haven't reopened the app.

Real-time truck status — open or not, where exactly. Live menu — what's available today, including any specials. Accurate wait time. Honestly the technology already exists, it just needs to be implemented. Plenty of food apps do this. If the BorderBlend app did it, I'd use it.

Just that they have something real. Good food is the hardest thing to fake and they're not faking it. Everything else is fixable. The app can be fixed, the social strategy can evolve. But the food being genuinely good is not something you can engineer — they already have it.

Any excuse to talk about tacos.

---