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View Full Version : Off to the festival!


Dr_KY
07-20-2009, 10:31 AM
We are out of here in two days and will be cooking till Monday morning.Wish us luck and big bucks.


BTW-
Yup just ordered two zero gravity chairs so we can have some comfort at the festival let's hope they arrive in time. Now we went over to pick up some items and found a Zero G chair, let the wife sit in it and she didn't care for it much. hummmmmmm?I guess we will see what she thinks in three days. :icon_sleepy


Off to have a few things PAT tested...

firecracker jack
07-20-2009, 03:23 PM
Wish you all the luck..And plenty of big bucks too....

Firecrackerjack
____________
Diamondplate pit 60
Chargriller pro/sfb

Dr_KY
07-21-2009, 01:54 AM
Thank you It's hammering down with rain at the moment but that's nothing new we just hopw the 'stiff upper lip' holds up and we get the numbers to turn this into a winner. We will pack an extra gazebo in case disaster strikes and plenty of dry clothes. There is one issue we haven't been able to solve and that's getting enough turkey legs.

Dr_KY
07-22-2009, 12:29 AM
Bingo!! Ordered in 200 turkey legs.

Yesterday I found a screamer of a deal from one of my butchers. He's gone out and picked up a new refrigerated van, He sent the old one out for new brakes, cam belt and tires plus had it detailed. I picked it up for 300.00 notes. Everything works great and runs smoothly.

See you guys in about a week.

Neil
07-22-2009, 03:50 AM
Bingo!! Ordered in 200 turkey legs.

Yesterday I found a screamer of a deal from one of my butchers. He's gone out and picked up a new refrigerated van, He sent the old one out for new brakes, cam belt and tires plus had it detailed. I picked it up for 300.00 notes. Everything works great and runs smoothly.

See you guys in about a week.

We want pics of the van!!!

Dr_KY
07-27-2009, 04:43 PM
Right that's it, job done.

What a crazy five days we had. There were high winds causing us to tether off to everything in site, no electrics for the first several hours we were there, fuses blowing every sixty seconds,pitching the gazebo on a steep incline then having to find blocks of wood to level everything out, mud, 20 hour shifts, running out of things like apple sauce and stuffing and having to make them both from scratch like my mother use to do... etc etc etc but we still served the best food at the festival and made the most cash.

Dr. Sweetsmoke has taken festival food to another level by showing England that turkey legs are the new core of festival food.

We flew the stars and stripes 24-7 as bold as we could above out 'pikey' cook shack never missing a beat. The Meat Beast powered it's way along side us.

We also had a health inspector pay us a visit. She was very happy with the efforts we made in regards to preperation, hot holding , time and temperature record keeping. I don't think we got a five star but time will tell.

We found several ways to stay in business even though we were told to change our menu by the consessions manager ( that was my fault and take full responsability for the mistake) and sabatage by other vendors!!!! Oh and we were also placed next to the garbage skip and power generators.

We will post pictures tomorrow as for now it time to sleep.




The first thing you see when entering the food court. :cool:


http://i30.tinypic.com/2m4yafk.jpg

stillsmokintn
07-27-2009, 07:11 PM
way to go .... how did others sabotage you? hope all went good.

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 03:12 AM
way to go .... how did others sabotage you? hope all went good.

The food court is at the entrance of the festival area and is layed out in the shape of a "P". Other than the cotton candy guy we were the first vender thus were gaining the lions share of the breakfast crowd of campers. At 5 AM I remember hearing the generator switch off but was too tired to go have a look ( we stopped serving at 3 AM) .... someone hit the emergency stop button. It took untill nine AM to get the electrician out to reset it so the bain marie , grill and coffee urn were ice cold. The vendors on the othr side of the lant and at the top were on seperate generators from ours.

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 03:58 AM
Set up...

http://i32.tinypic.com/2cqm979.jpg

http://i28.tinypic.com/vpaw08.jpg


We are directly across from one of the beer tents and music tents..

http://i27.tinypic.com/1zpim82.jpg


Some of The Competition..

http://i26.tinypic.com/x5qr2e.jpg
http://i30.tinypic.com/2drc5g0.jpg
http://i25.tinypic.com/ivehs9.jpg
http://i32.tinypic.com/11s2wzq.jpg
http://i29.tinypic.com/2utrtr9.jpg
http://i32.tinypic.com/2ue70ya.jpg

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 04:05 AM
After all that sun the sky went dark..

My fridge van and a rental to carry equipment

http://i29.tinypic.com/4g6j5.jpg

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 04:14 AM
Pork Butts

http://i25.tinypic.com/idsm0z.jpg


Turkey Legs!!!!

Yup we took the Yardbird with us!!

http://i28.tinypic.com/35ch4p1.jpg

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 04:19 AM
This guy here was the very first person to get a turkey leg from us at a festival.

http://i29.tinypic.com/70jgjq.jpg

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 04:29 AM
Being a huge fan we caught him walking around with the naked bone in his hat band so the idea bells went off and I came up with this idea..



YOUR BONE AUTOGRAPHED BY DR. SWEETSMOKE..




http://i28.tinypic.com/25zi04l.jpg

Drilled and zip tied a business card to it, each person to have one done was told to bring it back next year for a free leg in exchange.


http://i32.tinypic.com/2upvfpl.jpg

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 04:38 AM
Once the word got out there were bones every where. Each time someone ordered a turkey leg a party erupted everyone shouting TURKEY LEGGGGGGGGG!!! The Wife rattled the triangle like a mad woman and the rest of the staff found something to bang on. Once the leg was served the noise and chanting began again. Customers and passer by smiled and really got a kick out of the party atmosphere. it didn't hurt business either. :cool:

http://i25.tinypic.com/ma87d3.jpg

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 04:49 AM
By day two we had to send out for more..

http://i25.tinypic.com/of4v41.jpg

timzcardz
07-28-2009, 06:56 AM
Being a huge fan we caught him walking around with the naked bone in his hat band so the idea bells went off and I came up with this idea..



YOUR BONE AUTOGRAPHED BY DR. SWEETSMOKE..




http://i28.tinypic.com/25zi04l.jpg

Drilled and zip tied a business card to it, each person to have one done was told to bring it back next year for a free leg in exchange.


http://i32.tinypic.com/2upvfpl.jpg


I absolutely LOVE IT!

Very creative marketing!

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 07:35 AM
Thanks man it was a week of finding creative ways to keep things going.

The first monkey wrench was being told we couldn't sell burgers due to an arrangement I made and forgot about with the organizer several months ago. My hat is off to my crew for never stressing and working through whatever was thrown at us. It took all of about 45 seconds to come up with an idea of what to do with the burger stock.

We created two dishes, Sloppy Joe's and The Meatgasm!!

http://i32.tinypic.com/k3s6h.jpg

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 07:47 AM
.
BTW-
Yup just ordered two zero gravity chairs so we can have some comfort at the festival let's hope they arrive in time. Now we went over to pick up some items and found a Zero G chair, let the wife sit in it and she didn't care for it much. hummmmmmm?I guess we will see what she thinks in three days. :icon_sleepy



Looks like she changed her mind.:twisted:

http://i25.tinypic.com/2ujnima.jpg

You can see our kitchen set up the wet well six pot bain marie is just in front of the grill on a lower level. It should be even with but that's how much of a slope we were on.

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 08:03 AM
The girls loading home made stuffing into the cooker.

We ran out of packages stuffing so I rememgered how grandmak use to make it from toast so I loaded the coker up with 48 burger buns ( remember the over stock for not being able to serve hamburgers), toasted them and went to town. Slipped in a little bacon grease , diced onion and got a hand full of sage from a fresh plant vender there :)


http://i28.tinypic.com/9s7y4z.jpg

big brother smoke
07-28-2009, 08:33 AM
Al, "way to make things happen!" Hope you made some nice loot:mrgreen:

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 10:12 AM
We turned a few pennies :D

Momma had a genius idea, putting the pork on the meat slicer! That gave us more bang for the buck and was easier to hold and reheat.

http://i29.tinypic.com/2hx6bg5.jpg

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 10:34 AM
A treat after the heavy rain...

http://i29.tinypic.com/2lxk18m.jpg

Yakfishingfool
07-28-2009, 12:01 PM
Fantastic pictures!!! wish I could have been there!!!

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 01:03 PM
It was reat fun and the music at times was good.

I'm looking for the pictures of the home made apple sauce. I had to bang it out as we also ran short of it. Plenty of chese and coke left over though.

Brian in So Cal
07-28-2009, 01:43 PM
Congrats Ky, Quick thinking on your feet saved the day. Way to go!!

stillsmokintn
07-28-2009, 01:56 PM
man got to look at the pics little closer i like some of those rigs!whats up with that volkswagon?looks pretty darn cool.i also like how some guys rigs had the large swing up sign on top.could see doing that on my rig. well hope you made some bank and our relaxing a little now.

pat
07-28-2009, 02:07 PM
Congrats on the festival!

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 02:13 PM
Brian-you know how we BBQ people work baby, throw a problem our way and we work with it. lol We were thinking that if most of the other vendors had problems like us they wouldn't know what to do because they simply work with frosen food and have a method of cooking it. Our camp was blowing fuses and tripping breakers all day long nevermind the exploding light bulbs and sides blowing on the gazebo. HAHAHAHA! It was great to see the faces of those in the beer tent when we were standing out in the hammering rain dancing and tendind to the cooker.



Still smokin- I have more pictures of those rigs but mostly of the pricing so we can refer to it for the next event. I'll try and post them of you want.

Dr_KY
07-28-2009, 02:14 PM
Thanks Pat. :cool:

We took Spice and Plawboy with us so the Brethren were there in one form or another.

stillsmokintn
07-28-2009, 09:16 PM
cool look foward to them.

Divemaster
07-29-2009, 03:57 PM
The sign of a great manager is being able to adapt to what you've got and more importantly, what you ain't got!

Looks like you did a farkingtastic job! Proud of you Bro!

leanza
07-29-2009, 06:10 PM
I really got a good feel for the fun and hard work you guys put in, from your fantastic pics. What a great post!

grillfella
07-30-2009, 02:23 AM
Nice job DR everything looks good. Over here at an LA festival or orange county fair that turkey leg would run around $9 bucks a leg.

Dr_KY
07-30-2009, 02:35 AM
Thanks guys I hope I led them well

Nice job DR everything looks good. Over here at an LA festival or orange county fair that turkey leg would run around $9 bucks a leg.
That's where I got the idea. :icon_cool I remember when I was younger seeing them at the LACO fair every year so I figured why not bring the idea to the island.
We sold them at a low price to get people interested in them and it worked, compared at the same price as a 1/4 pound burger it was a fantastic deal for 1 lb of pure meat. Now that we have them out there we will price accordingly.

Dr_KY
07-30-2009, 02:39 AM
Things chilled out when the Stella and home made cider arrived. :cool:

http://i29.tinypic.com/148n040.jpg

Thats Mark our handy man in the crew, we couldn't have made it without him. When we didn't have a job for him he took over and became the team jester and roped people in to try our grub thus leading to 75% of them buying a product.

Dr_KY
07-30-2009, 02:41 AM
That 9.5% cider did the trick!

http://i29.tinypic.com/2s9ufk3.jpg

blues_n_cues
07-30-2009, 06:20 AM
it looks like y'all had a great time & were the hit of the festival. congratz.