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Opening a BBQ trailer - advice, tips, warnings, give me your best!

So thank you all for posting on this. My wife and I have been building a house since October so I've only been perfecting the process and working on marketing.

Here's where The Smoke & Swine Co. is currently.

I'm a tech & marketing guy by trade, study business and accounting religiously, and make the best BBQ in town.

My biggest hurdle has been finding someone that I trust that knows their way around a commercial kitchen and can also keep us compliant.

A good buddy of mine not only has $$$ to invest, but also worked in a kitchen for 14 years and ran it for the last 4 of those. He also brings some menu items I never would have thought of but are going to absolutely kill it. Hes originally from Bolivia and lived in Miami/South Florida for a long time. So we're going to do a Hispanic fusion BBQ joint. Being in the midwest, we're not married to any specific "type" of 'que and I really like the options of ways to serve it.

- Business registered
- Comissary agreement being signed in the next 30 days
- working on being exclusive provider of food for a golf course here
- 12 events in 2019
- 2 events completed, and 6 on the books already starting in May ranging from 30 to 400 people in 2020
- purchasing the trailer and other equip in April

Still a TON of work to do but it's definitely happening. Will update more as we progress.

Cheers yall!




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Last edited:
BrandonBBQ said:
Fingers crossed, new trailer (and massive new-to-me) smoker will be here next week.

Also meeting with a potential commissary provider that could blossom into being their exclusive food provider (they dont want to deal with a "kitchen")

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Click to expand...

Man that is awesome Thanks for the update! My trailer is an unenclosed trailer that is being fabbed now. We are going on week 2. Hopefully will be posting pictures start to finish in the next 2 weeks. I have a golf course right across the street as well that I want to partner up with for outside catering.

Make sure you post some pics of your trailer and smoker here for us to continue to follow along.
 
BrandonBBQ said:
Fingers crossed, new trailer (and massive new-to-me) smoker will be here next week.

Also meeting with a potential commissary provider that could blossom into being their exclusive food provider (they dont want to deal with a "kitchen")

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Pics!!
 
pharp said:
Pics!!
Click to expand...

They're coming soon!

The trailer was delivered and I can't wait to get cooking on it. The smoker is MASSIVE and going to help our capacity like crazy.

The past 2 weeks have been insane for us at the Smoke & Swine Co.

We secured the deal to use as a commissary AND to provide meat for the golf course 2x weekly. We can also setup the trailer as many weekends as we want on the to sell food at "the turn" (that's between hole 9 and hole 10 on a golf course where golfers get food/drinks/etc..)

We're pivoting away from going all in on serving lunch, etc... and focusing more on catering and events. We have been asked to do 4 events in May/June totaling over 1500 people! The reception we've gotten has been so encouraging and motivating. The Economic Development board is ready to help us get involved in other local events as soon as we get inspected. This also allows us to avoid needing a range hood and fire suppression system inside the trailer.

The Health Department has been absolutely awesome to work with so far and the inspector is willing to come out and walk us through things before the actual inspection. Fingers crossed we do things right!

We are working on getting it outfitted with mostly countertop height or prep table equipment to facilitate our needs.

Stay tuned, this is going to be AWESOME!
 
BigDaveBBQ said:
Man that is awesome Thanks for the update! My trailer is an unenclosed trailer that is being fabbed now. We are going on week 2. Hopefully will be posting pictures start to finish in the next 2 weeks. I have a golf course right across the street as well that I want to partner up with for outside catering.

Make sure you post some pics of your trailer and smoker here for us to continue to follow along.
Click to expand...


That's pretty bad ass! The golf course has been instrumental in making this happen and soon enough the best BBQ in town is going to be served regularly there.

We got a 24' porch concession trailer with about 14' of enclosed room. What smoker is going on it?
 
Quick update...


- Water system being delivered Monday
- Warming cabinet delivered Tuesday
- Stainless tables ordered


Waiting for the Health Department to open back up hopefully this week but Indiana just extended the "Stay At Home" to at least May 1st so we will see what happens.
 
BrandonBBQ said:
That's pretty bad ass! The golf course has been instrumental in making this happen and soon enough the best BBQ in town is going to be served regularly there.

We got a 24' porch concession trailer with about 14' of enclosed room. What smoker is going on it?
Click to expand...

Hey Brandon, I got a custom built 6' Reverse flow Smoker with a vertical warming/smoker over the firebox. Drop me your social media

You can check me out at @bucketheadbbq
 
BrandonBBQ said:
Quick update...


- Water system being delivered Monday
- Warming cabinet delivered Tuesday
- Stainless tables ordered


Waiting for the Health Department to open back up hopefully this week but Indiana just extended the "Stay At Home" to at least May 1st so we will see what happens.
Click to expand...

That's great news! We are just sending our rig out to paint. Then it will go to wrap, then install the plumbing and electrical. But everything is mounted, fabbed, and ready to rock and roll. Scheduled for 3 weeks with the county inspection.
 
We'll brethren, what a wild few weeks it's been. My wife, 18mo old son, and I moved into a new house with space we can grow into and where my office isn't doubling as the nursery. Building took over 6 months but we finally moved in. House is on the golf course that we will be bulk selling to for them to sell at the clubhouse and halfway food shack. We've been generating quite a bit of buzz around the area lately.



Here's another update!

- We made the paper (http://www.inkfreenews.com/2020/05/06/smoke-swine-plans-to-bring-new-tastes-to-the-community/)
- Trailer has had all vinyl removed. All panels have been painted "Smoke Gray" and we will be changing the chrome to black to outline everything. Once finished paint will get over to designer to finalize our logo placements and such.

- We had the service window cut-in, it's been primed and will be painted this week.


To finish the trailer we just need to finalize where everything will be placed once get the health department to come out and take a look at things. I still have a bunch of paperwork to file with the state but we are getting real close!
 
Just another quick update!

- Health department inspector came out for kind of a prelim meeting to just let us know any glaring issues, etc... said with the trailer in the condition it's in, it would take 10 minutes for the actual inspection as long as all the (brand new) equipment is working.
- We decided to forego the whole wrap, and ended up painting the trailer a "smoke grey" base and changing the chrome to black
- Finalizing the commissary agreement tomorrow morning
- LOOKING FOR BRISKET AND PORK BUTT SUPPLIERS!

I'm so stoked to show the Brethren what we've got going on and share our plans to make an impact in the community. Cheers yall!
 
We’ve been open for about 2 months now basically doing a “soft opening” and figuring out processes and quantities.

This was last Thursday and our first official “sellout” in the big trailer.

I’m going to start a new blog post and kind of condense this thread along with LESSONS LEARNED.

Because holy **** have we learned some things.

But this.... seeing this makes it all worth it. And seeing a bunch of return customers come back and say “you’ve got the best brisket in the county”

.... humbling to say the least.

8476864ee91fb58d6acf6e85346479a7.jpg



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Congrats on selling out!

What's a pudge muffin? I'm assuming it's not what I'm seeing on my google searches..
 
BrandonBBQ said:
We’ve been open for about 2 months now basically doing a “soft opening” and figuring out processes and quantities.

This was last Thursday and our first official “sellout” in the big trailer.

I’m going to start a new blog post and kind of condense this thread along with LESSONS LEARNED.

Because holy **** have we learned some things.

But this.... seeing this makes it all worth it. And seeing a bunch of return customers come back and say “you’ve got the best brisket in the county”

.... humbling to say the least.

8476864ee91fb58d6acf6e85346479a7.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Congrats. It sounds like we started our business at the same time. Trailer was completed built end of may and June. We have been open about 2 months as well.

When will you be posting up some pictures and videos of the trailer. Really Excited to see it.
 
BigDaveBBQ said:
Congrats. It sounds like we started our business at the same time. Trailer was completed built end of may and June. We have been open about 2 months as well.

When will you be posting up some pictures and videos of the trailer. Really Excited to see it.
Click to expand...


Congrats on opening yours as well!

We are still finalizing the graphics and working out what we’re going to do for the winter. But we’ve done a couple events and have gotten into a decent groove. Hopefully we will have them on soon and will do a bit of a walkthrough.

We definitely aren’t making life changing money by any means but this experience has been life changing in so many ways.

For anyone considering opening a food truck just know that it’s way more work than you’re thinking it is. I promise. Especially if you plan on doing your own marketing, accounting, etc...

However I’ve met so many awesome people and have had some interesting opportunities come about because of it.

Be prepared, you gotta grind.


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