Vending for the first time with a pop-up BBQ joint?

Hi,

I'm thinking of vending some Q with a pop-up BBQ joint. We've got this event around six times of year where people start pop-up restaurants in our cities.

As I have no experience in catering or vending, I have some questions about timetables and whatnot.

There is no way I could Q all my stuff in the pop-up location, so I've decided to prepare most meats beforehand. I'm probably serving pulled pork and maybe ribs.

I thought of keeping the butts in coolers until served, but that wouldn't work since I need to do multiple batches with my smallish UDS.

Should I smoke them, cool them rapidly and then reheat in the pop-up location? Previously I've done this with my pork pulled in vacuum packs in boiling water, but the results have never been satisfactory to me. It just tastes nothing like fresh pulled pork.

Has anyone tried reheating meat with Sous Vide machine? I'll have mine completed this week and I've thought that would be perfect for reheating and keeping meat at safe serving temps for almost indefinitely. Using boiling water one could overcook the meat, no?

How about the ribs, could they be reheated in the same manner? I could probably smoke the ribs on the location and serve fresh, since they don't take that much time.

Also, I'd like to buy the butts in several batches for the event, but I'm not sure if freezing them beforehand would impact the taste too much?

Ideally I'd buy them from various sales, freeze all of them immediately, thaw, smoke, cool rapidly, keep at safe temp, and then reheat at the pop-up location.

Well, plans changed a bit

I now have three drums and will be hauling them to the site the night before, and cooking everything on-site. We'll hold the pork 'till serving and keep it whole as long as possible before pulling.

Finland has extremely strict health regulations, but as this is a guerilla event held by private citizens, they are not governed as such (but the event is supported by the government). Checked the fire regulations, we are good to go unless we'd have an open pit :-o

I'll be buying around 75 lbs of pork neck for pulled pork and one whole beef neck for pulled beef as well. Let's see how it goes, generally people are not really trying to make money on this day. Many use it as training wheels before eventually going commercial, but I have no plans to do so. Perfectly satisfied to Q as a hobby :grin: