Roadside vending

The last few month we have been looking for a location to set up and vend daily. Well, we found our location and we are setting up our rig next week in a permenant location. I've done the research on the location. It has about 15k cars that go by everyday during the winter months and nearly 25k in the summer. We will be set up next to a very busy fresh produce market that runs year round. We'll be open Wed-Sat to start from 11-7pm or until the food runs out. Wanna be there for lunch and early dinner crowd.
Our menu will be simple to start. Brisket, pulled pork, tri tip, sausage sammies and a cheeseburger. We plan to run nightly specials on meats by the pound with buns and sauce to go.
Our first day is the 7th of January. I'm a little nervous about vending in Jan much like smokinit. But we have to set up now if we want the location in the summer. I'll throw up some pics of our setup soon. I'll keep you all posted as to how its going. :-D

Congrats! Wish we could do that in Cali.

Bump

hossrocks said:

The last few month we have been looking for a location to set up and vend daily. Well, we found our location and we are setting up our rig next week in a permenant location. I've done the research on the location. It has about 15k cars that go by everyday during the winter months and nearly 25k in the summer. We will be set up next to a very busy fresh produce market that runs year round. We'll be open Wed-Sat to start from 11-7pm or until the food runs out. Wanna be there for lunch and early dinner crowd.
Our menu will be simple to start. Brisket, pulled pork, tri tip, sausage sammies and a cheeseburger. We plan to run nightly specials on meats by the pound with buns and sauce to go.
Our first day is the 7th of January. I'm a little nervous about vending in Jan much like smokinit. But we have to set up now if we want the location in the summer. I'll throw up some pics of our setup soon. I'll keep you all posted as to how its going. :-D

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smokinit said:

Ya grab that spot now and if you are next to a year round produce market you may have some winter traffic. I would not go overboard with quantities better to sell out at first than incurr alot of waist.Your first few weeks their stay open 4 or 5 days to get the feel for who is stopping in and when and make the adjust ment on days from there based on the weather. 7pm may be a bit to late in the winter to stay open but give it a shot. Best of luck and as always PM me with anything you need or if you want to talk by phone let me know.

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Bump!

What is going on out their Brothers? smokinit, I ran across your website earlier today, looks like you have taken the winter off from the roadside but are taking special orders.

Hossrocks, how goes the new spot? Got any pics to share?

And if I can ask a few questions, what do you guys, or anybody I guess, serve on a daily basis, do you have specials, how have you come to find out what your needs are. Did you just start out with X amount of food and close when you sold out?
Guess thos are enough for now. Just want to know how things are going?

Much less overhead doing business this way.

We still have the spot but we ran into some issues with the city and a special use permit. After two weeks of paper work, meetings and additional verbage to the permit I was told yesterday that we don't need a special use permit and all I have to pay is the $25 peddlers fee! I hate politics. With that solved we are setting up today and will begin serving the first of the week. I'll post pic later tonight of the set up.

I've been dreaming about this for a long time and you guys are giving me additional inspiration. Over time I have buying gear to make it happen. My real plan was to do it after retirement, but it is kind of looking like my job might end this year, so I may be starting earlier than I thought.

Keep us updated on your progress....

Still need a trailer/pit/cooker to use and money is too tight to invest at the moment.

smokinit said:

Take the plung we'll be here for ya.

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I've never shown this on the board. For now at least I intend for this to be my branding. Let me know what you think. The trade mark is in the wrong place, so I have to fix that.

It gets my attention.

Our first week is now in the books... Things are tough right now with the weather. We are in the grips of a inversion. Everything is gray and cold. So to say that we started out rough is and understatement. Wednesday it rained like crazy and it was bone chilling cold. Didn't do much but get some attention from passers by. Thursday was a little better. I started out just offering sammies. Every person that came to the window wanted meals. Sold them what I could and took notes.
Friday (weather was much better) I threw together some beans and ran a 2 meat combo as the special. Brisket, Pulled pork or sausage were the choices. Came with beans and a bag of chips. We sold several of those. Got pretty excited by the number of folks that stopped for grub on our second real day of service.
Today (Saturday) left me scratching my head. Ran a one meat meal as the special and didn't sell one of them. Can't predict the public. :grin: We are getting some great feedback which is encouraging.
Next week I'm back at it. Gonna start on tuesday this week just to see what kind of turn out I might get. I'm going to run specials again, Tuesaday PP sammie, Wed - 2 Meat Combo, Thurs - Tri Tip combo, Fri i'm thinking of doing a rib special. Thinking about a family meal with a couple of racks and sides. Enough for 4-6 people. Saturday we are booked with auction gigs so I won't be out there.
I'll keep you all posted as we progress. The inversion is supposed to break up on Monday. We have our fingers crossed. It will be the first hint of sunshine we have had in more than 2 weeks!

What do you guys think about the rib special? It will run around $45 to feed the family. Is that to much to ask from a roadside vendor?

hossrocks said:

Today (Saturday) left me scratching my head. Ran a one meat meal as the special and didn't sell one of them. Can't predict the public. :grin: We are getting some great feedback which is encouraging.
Next week I'm back at it. Gonna start on tuesday this week just to see what kind of turn out I might get. I'm going to run specials again, Tuesaday PP sammie, Wed - 2 Meat Combo, Thurs - Tri Tip combo, Fri i'm thinking of doing a rib special. Thinking about a family meal with a couple of racks and sides. Enough for 4-6 people. Saturday we are booked with auction gigs so I won't be out there.
I'll keep you all posted as we progress. The inversion is supposed to break up on Monday. We have our fingers crossed. It will be the first hint of sunshine we have had in more than 2 weeks!

What do you guys think about the rib special? It will run around $45 to feed the family. Is that to much to ask from a roadside vendor?

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Sammies are our biggest seller it seems regardless of which Market we do. I think they use it as a way to sample our meat before the splurge on a meal. Those who like the sammies usually come back for the meal. Hang in there and the crowds will come. If you're not advertising then you have to depend on word of mouth and the grapevine is not what it used to be.

Also if you think the meal is worth $45 then it's not to much. We have a guy that comes to us every Saturday to get his half rack. Also sometimes we have to make up prices on the spot because people just want meat. So give yourself some wiggle room. We kind of gauge our prices on what we charge for the sammie X's how ever much more we give. (e.g. our rib sammie has 2 bones for $4, people who just want the ribs and no bread we give them 3 ribs and charge $5) The people love it.

We struggled a bit late last fall with vending roadside when gas was $4 a gallon, and expect our business to be a touch soft this year roadside, but catering keeps rolling along (thank god).

smokinit said:

Hey sounds about like what I went through although I started a little earlier in the season I did the same head scratching on meals and when and what they want. I also did the family meal thing had a few bites but wasted alot so I decided to do them on a order only basis and promoted it to the lunch crowd and did better with it.Also we did very well with chicken breast sammies and steamed dogs went well also with chili and other fixens helped to get some extra $ each day. Hang in there bud it will happen if you want to chat sometime PM for my number.

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MrsMista said:

Sammies are our biggest seller it seems regardless of which Market we do. I think they use it as a way to sample our meat before the splurge on a meal. Those who like the sammies usually come back for the meal. Hang in there and the crowds will come. If you're not advertising then you have to depend on word of mouth and the grapevine is not what it used to be.

Also if you think the meal is worth $45 then it's not to much. We have a guy that comes to us every Saturday to get his half rack. Also sometimes we have to make up prices on the spot because people just want meat. So give yourself some wiggle room. We kind of gauge our prices on what we charge for the sammie X's how ever much more we give. (e.g. our rib sammie has 2 bones for $4, people who just want the ribs and no bread we give them 3 ribs and charge $5) The people love it.

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What size of sammie are you guys serving? We are doing 1/3lb sammies on 4 1/2 in buns, meat combos are 1/4 of each meat. We are charging $6 for the sammies. $8.50 for 2 meat combo and $9.50 for 3 meat.

Festivals-Arts and Craft Shows?

I have a couple of questions that I sure could use some help on: 1. Does anyone do festivals or arts and craft shows or the like? How difficult is it to get into this area?

2. Has anyone had any dealings with Southern Yankee Smokers and Concession Trailers?

Thanks