Concession

You may want to move this on down to the pros only forum and see what they have to offer.

Gil,
There are a bunch of people in the pros only forum that can answer most of your questions. For your licenses and permits, call your county health board or check them online and they can give you all that Tuscon specific info.

Also, if you go to Ebay and search for "concessions" you'll get a company that sells a state by state guide. It is all public information, but it is worth the $10 it costs in time savings. It has information about permits, licensing, events, etc.

Here is the link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=317&item=2965465108

Thanks to you all, at least it's a start. : )
Gil

AZ
I just completed my first vending event today. It was for a Women's conference sponsored by the YMCA. I lost a lot of money on the deal, but I do believe it was worth it for what I learned. I have no regrets or hard feelings towards the experience or the people involved.

My best friends wife was a co-organizer of the event and asked me several months ago to be a food vendor. Initially, I estimated that some type of chicken would be good and figured maybe I would serve 200 people at the event. Several revised estimates on how many would attend plus being convinced that women would love my pork convinced me to change my menu plans and significantly up my forecast.

In the end, I cooked 30 pork butts on my FE100, figuring a 4 oz serving would yield nearly 550 servings. I also planned to make 10 batches of baked beans (large bush beans plus a lot of fixings, and 100 lbs of cole slaw. We probably sold 75-100 sandwiches today. All kinds of wonderful comments from those that purchased, but also a lot of inquiries if we had chicken or comments that they did not eat pork.

I staffed for my forecast, asking 6 friends and family members to help. I think I grossed enough to pay them. What was really sad, I guess, is we intended on sharing our profits with a local charity. Hmmm, I wonder if they would be willing to share my losses? HA.

Anyway, we are looking forward to our next event and we did get a couple serious catering inquiries, include one for 200 people. And I learned a lot about forecasting which I intend to apply in our next event

good luck in your research.

quote:

Originally posted by Todd G.:
[qb] Also, if you go to Ebay and search for "concessions" you'll get a company that sells a state by state guide. It is all public information, but it is worth the $10 it costs in time savings. It has information about permits, licensing, events, etc.

Here is the link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=317&item=2965465108 [/qb]

Todd, I have used this guys service and it is very convenient for obtaining a single states jurisdiction regs.

I've been catering part-time for a few years now and am getting geared up to hit the road. I've been developing a mobile food vending trailer in which I plan to operate in many states. So I need for the equipment to comply with as many jurisdictions as possible.

But it would not be practical for me to buy (and read) the 'rules & regs' for 48 states from this eBay guy.

So my question to you all is, which states have the most strict (or severe) regulations pertaining to mobile food vending (fire code, sanitation, etc)? Not just for fairs and festivals (where the enforcement sometimes gets relaxed), but for setting up shop for a few months at a time at various public retail locations.

I'm very acquainted with Indiana's regs but I've heard that there are more severe ones out there.

TIA,

Guy

5 years is a long time to wait. I'm not that patient.

Dale, I know what you mean about over-estimating for an event. We set up a BBQ stand at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in 2000, sight [site] unseen. According to our landlady we were going to need a Brinks truck to haul all of our profits home. The people that did find us, loved our food, and returned with their friends, but it was in an area of town that made it hard to find. We had a blast, and broke even,[rent was close to $7000 for the 10 days] but it's hard to build a referal list 500 miles from home.

We try to do as many local events as we can, even knowing we will not be making any money, to get exposure. Our kids have been doing a local Punk Rock festival for the last 2 years, and haven't made a nickel on it yet. Because we able to get in on the ground floor, we feel it was great upside potential. It also is a great place for our kids to gain valueable experiance, by doing all planning themselves. We go down at the end of the night and help them clean up.

As far as the people asking for chicken and not buying anything because you didn't have it, I know their type. They are trying to act like they really want to buy something from you. We now answer "yes we do!" and then they will say something like "I only have $1 with me" we say "we take credit cards" etc, etc.

Good Luck! Roger

We started out vending with an EZ-Up tent and a couple of Lifetime tables.

Went down to the local Dept of Health and got a special events permit and built from there.

We have also rented Pepsi consession trailers. They are pretty cheap. They do all the hauling.

Hey, MN,

Can you explain the Pepsi rental trailers?

Bodacious BBQ,

There is a Pepsi distributer in Mankato that rents the trailers out. They drop them off at your site and pick them up when done.

They also will stock the refridgerator with, you guessed it, Pepsi products.

I think the cost was $100 or $150 for the trailer. Pop was $.60 for 20 oz bottles.

We called the Pepsi "special events coordinator" several weeks in advance to reserve. With all the fairs and town celebrations they get booked up fast.

Roger

I do catering and vending....started like mnhogfarmer- EZUp, folding tables, NBBD to hold/serve from, and a 2-burner stove with flat-grill, and ever more coolers. Been growing slowly but steadily since then.

I now have a fully equipped trailer. It's going to make life a lot easier.

Every jurisdiction has their own rules & regs. You can probably write to each one and have their requirements sent out to you. Maybe pick out a tough one like Denver or San Diego and use that as a guide.

I've found that mostly the Health Dep't wants to know that no matter what your equipment, you can be safe with food.

Yeah, the fully equipted trailers sure make life easier. Everythings ready to go. Just hook it up start driving.

Set up is a snap. Fill the buffet table and stand back. Then while the guests are finishing up, reach into the NSF refridge, grab a beverage and start doing dishes. Everything is ready for the next gig before we get done with the present one. Do a little more PR with the people that come over to talk to you, and your done.

It wouldn't seems so nice if we didn't start out with tents, coolers, and half a mile of extension cord. And tending the stick-burner all night, those were the days.

We did a local fund raiser for United Way. They asked us to supply our raw food costs. They doubled it for the selling price. We were paid with tickets which we sold back to them for 1/2 the total price. It was to be a wing and chili cookoff. Having a bbq trailer, I thought would be kind of silly, but I thought it would be good exposure for us. We completely sold out of pulled pork and Brunswick stew, more than covered the cost of those items, but came up short on the chicken wings, since everyone was serving wings. We weren't even entered in chili, thank heavens. We did win 2nd place on chicken wings in their contest and got lots of people wanting to know where they could buy our bbq. Sometimes, I think entering into an event that has nothing to do with your product is a success story.
Also, entering contests can help you in more ways than publicity. You can learn what you can do in a time frame. It helps give you something to compare yourself to. It's certainly not an income producer in itself because you have a lot of money going out, with not much in return. It's been helpful to us to be able to say "we finished at this place with this product". That gets people's interest to try your product.
Peggy

Dale,
We had a lady come up wanting to know if we had any ribs. This was at a wing and chili cookoff. She said she really was wanting ribs. Well, why in the world would you come to a wing and chili cookoff wanting bbq in the first place doesn't make a lick of sense, but I sold her some Brunswick stew and sent her on her way, lol.
Peggy

Yep, I think the exposure was worth more than our revenue (which was not hard to beat) as we already had a follow-up call from one person who is organizing a little-league picnic for 200 folks and wants us to quote it. I feel a whole lot better quoting a definite number of folks rather than guessing how many will stop by my booth at an event.

The experiences shared in this thread have been invaluable. We were thinking about the local farmers market, still want to do it, but are reining back our plans to start small. Actually thinking about just doing wings the first couple times to see what the folks like, what pricing, what volume, etc. Sell em for a buck a wing, make up a couple hundred, when we sell out, we're done for the day. Much better than trying to make sure you always have enough. Thanks everyone for the great feedback.

I wanted to do the local farmers market too, but they won't allow it. They say that items sold have to be "home made", but they have hot dog vendors and ice cream vendors there. Also, people reselling jams and jellies. So I ask you, what isn't home made about BBQ cooked on site? Do I have to raise the hogs myself? I'm pretty sure the hot dog vendor doesn't own his own rat farm.

We vend BBQ at one of the St. Paul Farmers Markets, but are not allowed at the other. Same orginization.

We do raise our own hogs.

As new rules are made, alot of things remain "grandfathered" in. Some growers have been in the St. Paul FM for over 100 years.

Roger

Tending the stick burner all night.....

Yeah. Those were the days all right. I'm just glad they aren't the days now!