Doing a a fairly large Event

What smoker are you using?

Hi. We have the FEC.

Does anyone have a formula for estimating how much food to prepare for this kind of event?

We are doing one for the VFW for the 4th of July too. I expect a much smaller crowd for that one, and it is only a one day shot. But, I think it will help us get the feel for larger crowds. Hoping so anyway.

Right now I am getting ready for the Flea Market we do on Friday and Saturday, but I will keep checking back here off and on to see what thoughts you all have.

Thanks!

Kate

kate,
you are going thru the same mental gymnastics i am figuring out for the 2 day event peg wants to do. if it is any help here is how i am approaching that one.
total people count divided by food vendors plus 10%. this may be lowball number and may require peg to go a store and me stay up all night but it is a good start point with no money (hopefully) lost.
your drink thing may be the big money part so on that i would go up on the estimate to 7 plus 25%. last time i had a phosphate was indy in 69 lol. good things too!!!
breakfast. thats big way to use up the oops i cooked too much brisket!!! think you and peg talked about brisket on a biscuit. big return on the buck there and funny part it does well all day due to it's cost.
food purchasing;
you didnt say how far a field you were from your normal supplier but for me i would base sales off of the 1st formula and buy only that. on day 2 you should have a good idea of weather and people count and could rebuy from that. might mean a sleepless nite but that beats lost money.
easy way on meat is this raw weight divded by 2 equals cooked weight.
serving size is 4 per pound cooked weight(i.e. 1 pound raw gives 8 oz cooked which gives 2 servings) ribs at restauarants here is 5 bones. most spares have 13. so one slab equals 2 and 3/5ths servings.
all that should get you near the park. i don't have my book of chef's yields nearby or i could give you an idea on the cabbage required for the slaw or beans for the baked beans but if you need those i would be more than happy to find the book and give you what it says.
good luck on this one. sounds like you and peg are a lot alike on doing the bigger events. that being the case i will help however i can but do me a favor and pray they pave the "road" to the event peg wants to do.
jack

If it's 4 days, I would cook a desired amount and cool it for future use if not sold. Maybe hold it in the fridge and warm it up.

At our local ribfest they cook (rewarm) in front for show.

My experiance has been to ask the orginizers or landlady how much to cook and go half.

We spent $10,000 rent for 10 days in Sturgis. Sold maybe 20% of what we were told. Luckily we broke even, and had a BLAST!

aw heck forgot the cooking schedule,
2 ways to do this.
ez'est is how we do it at work.
cook 2 days worth and reheat.
wrap everything in commercial film and then heavy gauge foil and right into the freezer for 2 hours (i use that method at work since they dont have a blast chiller and do the same for us on custom orders)
reheat is ez, leave in the wrap set at 225f for 2 hours and thats it.
just rember, total people count for the days, divided by 7 plus 10%.
taught peg if you run out itjust increases the demand later.
have a good time with this (i am. it is freaking peg out but i come from a convention background as a chef and love the big numbers)
lastly i will leave you with chef walter achatz's words to me "jack food is like a dog. show it fear and it will bite you!!!" damn good man he was. had a stroke and he still rembers more than i will know.
jack
ps. the hard way isn't worth telling but involves buying everyday and staying up all nite for 4 days. it's do-able and if you have never done it might be a learning experience but it is a one shot deal only. now if you have 4 back to back contracts it is a trip worth taking!!!! been there done that and they dont give tee shirts lol

Hi.

Wow! Thanks! Great advice, at least it sounds good to me.

My puny $755 for four days sounds small compared to to Ten grand! I am feeling fairly sure that I can make a profit on this venture. I have been talking to people around town and have confirmed what I thought, The first day, a Thursday will be on the slower side. Friday and Saturday will rock. Sunday will slow down again. So, I have to add that to the mix.

This event does not usually have opeings for primary vendors, especially this late in the game. One of the usual vendors sold his business and that one is not open for business right now. The other opening is usually held by a resort that is doing construction this summer and cannot participate. People keep asking us how we got in even. I did find out the chamber had an employee come over and test out our food. I guess we passed. It is kind of exciting, a lot scary, but I am really looking forward to this. I question my sanity at times too.

What I also hear is that no vendor ever gets through this without running out of food. Certain realities have crept into my mind. I keep thinking about buns, cups, sandwich contairners, meat and where will I put them all! I live about a mile from where this will all take place. I just know I am going to dream about buns tonight! That's a nightmare friends!

I have tried reheating with the film wrap and the 225 degree temp for two hours and that worked well for me. I will go with that. Just about have to.

The formulas are very helpful. Thank you, and yes Jack, if it wouldn't be too much of a bother I could use the help, drag out that book!

We will be on the road by 7am tomorrow, so I will have to come back tomorrow night and reread all the information. I am just doing a quick run through right now.

Jack, you are offically in my prayers. If we can't get that road paved we will get you some heavenly assistance for a smooth ride from the man. I think Peggy has an instinct or intuition on this one, you have to go with it! Keep the faith.

The brisket on a biscuit is awesome! I found that older people were asking for it when I was sold out of biscuits at lunch time. The smaller amount appealed to them where the big brisket sandwich was too much food for them. Hey, and I didn't even do the gravy! I will this weekend though. It is a great addition to our menu and I thank both you and Peggy for that.

I have a fantastic company that supplies the syrups for the phosphates. I get 45 dollars every month for POS advertising material from them for free. Great people to work with too. I would be glad to supply the name of the company if anyone needs it. Jack, 37 years is a long time to go without a phosphate! I date myself knowing what a phosphate is. Most of the younger crowd ask us what a phosphate is!! More on this tomorrow. More on everything!

This is going to be quite an experience. Good or bad, I am going to have a blast too!

Thanks guys! Like I said great advice. We appreciate it!

Kate

sounds like a great tiem ahead of ya, kate.
i agree with all the advice given here, i just want to add another angle for you to consider.
but first, i think you should scale down your menu. for events this big, you are gonna lose business, if you cant get people in and out in a hurry. too many choices, will have them thinkin and pondering forever! make it simple.... no more than three options, no questions to ask. offer something like pork sand or beef sand or rib plate... done! pick one, pay, next...
instead of thinking of how many people, and how much to cook, try crunching your numbers backwards. first number in the formula.... how much do you want to make????
so lets say you want to clear 2g, for 4 days.
ok, so thats 500 per day clear. now add your daily expenses. 200 rent, 50 packaging,and misc. food cost on 750 is roughly 300, so your looking at 1050 sales in one day, to clear 500. sound about right so far?
now, depending on your portion sizes, and your prices, that would be about 6 butts, 2 briskets, and 10 racks of ribs, a day. now, that sounds pretty simple, doesnt it.
i suggest that the first two days of food, be cooked the day prior(two days worth, just incase your sales are way over the top) then, while at the event, you smoke the third days food supply, and so on. this way, you can make adjustments to your overall quantities as sales progress.
hope this helps.......
have fun

Hi.

Just got back in from a day at the Flea Market. It was late last night when I was reading responses, and now I am preparing for another full day tomorrow, same flea market. I can see that I am not going to get to really study your suggestions until tomorrow night or Sunday. But I want to say Thank you now.

Have to get back to work now, but Thank you! All the suggestions, ideas and information are going to make this a lot easier to plan.

Thanks again!

Kate

Hi, Kate,
Keep it as simple as you can.
I was told to figure on 1/3 of the gate buying your stuff. Keep everything close to the same price.
I'd figure less than 1/3. Because I'm a pessimist.
If you're the only meat vendor, you might do 1/3 just fine!
Let us know how it works!
Peggy
P.S. In August you might need lots of drinks. We had 95 plus temps today and sold out of drinks very early.

kate,
i sure hope this info is not too late.
cabbage:
for coleslaw as a side order 2.5 oz raw cabbage.
1 pound as purchased (means a head you get from grocery store) yields 12 ounces ready to use. or to put it another way you buy 16 ounces and lose 25%. so 12 ounces ready to use gives a little over 5 servings. my own advice is to get a case of "slaw mix" for two reasons. one it is easy to figure out how many servings in a 10 pound bag. but two and this is more important is you are not paying for waste and you are not doing labor (most guys forget if you chop you gotta get paid and work themselves to death for free). the shelf life on the product is in the 2 week area if it is kept chilled and the bag isn't opened so that you gives you some leeway for utilization later (man that's polite for not losing your shirt and selling it at another event).
beans;
a #10 can of baked beans has a yield of 24 4 ounce servings. if you are adding things to it like we do,meat, onions that kind of stuff then it goes up. one thing we are using is a small papper boat. it fits just right in a 2 1/2 pound paper boat sideways. a 4 ounce spodle fills it to the top. the pulled pork sandwich on a bun fills the other 2/3rd of the big boat. looks really full but my meat throw has gone down to a true 4 ounces(from about a 5 to 6 ounce throw and puts me now right where the resturants are) and people are telling me i don't see how you make money which is a very good sign.
keep your labor simple. to give you an idea on the slaw we are using Marzetti's slaw dressing. not a big deal in the midwest but down here there is only one IGA grocery store selling it. price is cheap, no labor,no inventory and most important a lot of compliments from the oldsters and the young ones alike. peg tells them that it an old style cooked dressing which it is and leaves it at that.
glad the reheat you have tried and it works for you. by the way it works for pork if you leave it whole and does great with brisket also if you dont get hung up on the comp brisket thing and are just cooking good eatting brisket.
thanks for your prayers!!!!!!! wednesday the 14thmarks my 35th year of being married to peggy. she was 17, i was 20 and before the questions are asked our daughter came 13 years later. the only thing i have learned in 35 years is if peg has a gut feeling go with it!!! 34 years back i didn't and still regret that faux pas
heck on left over beans forgot this trick i learned this may duing the cancer benefit and was using the fec for this. if you put commercial film and then heavy gauge foil over left over beans they heat up the same way just fine. this can also work for pulled pork left overs but i did put a cup of water in the pork before filming and wrapping

Other considerations.

• How hard do you wish to work?
  
• What's the maximum number of additional people you wish to hire?
  
• Given the above and your operation, what is the maximum number of customers you can reasonable serve per hour?

Hi.

Jack, thank you! Not too late at all, I have about 8 weeks to plan this.

Peggy, Thank you! I like the KISS theory and I tend to always try to keep to that. A good reminder for me.

Rootsman, Thank you too. I am willing to work my patoot off. Is that the right spelling?

I have some help already lined up. I have a go for or gopher lined up too. Important member to have too!

I am in the process of finding out some important information. Hours they want us to serve, talking to a past vendor that cannot make it this year, but will give me the low down on his experience, figuring out just how many I can serve in an hour, and so on.

After I talk to the vendor that has participated in prior years, I think I will have a better grasp on what to expect. I have a pretty good idea that it is going to be a very busy 4 days.

I am taking notes on all the suggestions and advice. It is a GREAT help!

Keep the ideas and thoughts coming. I certainly appreciate them all!

Thanks some more!

Kate

Hi.

Aren't kids great! My son is coming for our big event in August. We will be running from 11a.m. to 1 a.m., so having him and his wife and my mother-in-law will be a a gift from heaven! My son has been in food service over the years off and on and my in-law has been in food management as career her whole life. Jack, My tatooed kid is in Hawaii, so I have one of those too! Both my sons worked for me at our Fish and Chip shope, so I could have gladly used them both. My lucky charm kid is my little girl who is 7. She runs the window when I go out alone now. Cute as a button, she charms them at the window, and, generally distracts the customers while I wrangle up the food. We work well together. I know, kids are not supposed to be in the trailer while working, but I have permission for her to be at the window, get cans of soda and chips out at that end. If I could just trust her to do the money I would be really in good shape! I have to tell you that the kid gets tips! Patrick and I don't get tips, but she does! When Patrick arrives I tell him just to let her continue doing the window, let her give him the money and make the change for her, then let her finish. She is a novelty, people are tickled by her, it works!

We have nine days until the 4th of July event. I am thinking it is good practice for the August event which will be bigger. On the 4th I have a plan. We have a store rather close and if we do run out of food we can hit the store and run chicken. I have checked their schedule and know the hours. Best plan I could come up with since my space for storing food is going to be limited. If I over cook I can sell my extras on Wednesday and then Friday and Saturday, so I am not worried about that aspect. Having 500 buns extra would not thrill me though!

I will post how the 4th goes, all the good and bad of it.

Take care !
Kate

Hi.

Well, how quickly things change. I have my buns and meat ordered for this 4th of July event and low and behold this afternoon I hear we cannot do it because the VFW was told by the town that they may not allow a profit concession to work on their not for profit premisis. But wait, it gets better .. when one door closes they say another opens and it did, maybe the garage sized door at that! I am frantically searching for another event to replace this one and I get a call from one of the flea market vendors from our weekend gig. Seems he and a bunch of other vendors lobbied a huge flea market that we tried to get into but were told no room ... and they have accepted us. This is a huge flea market for us with a mimimum of 388 vendors! I think it might be the largest in the state. We are in on Mondays. In the long run this is will be to our advantage with the large crowds and big number of vendors and it lasts till Fall. They are running their 4th on the 2nd there in town, The market is on the 3rd. We will hit a good crowd of people for the 4th holiday and I think it will all work out better in the end. The market has a few food vendors, but no smokehouse food. A taco stand, hot dogs I think and not much else. Our vendor friends are getting free ribs this weekend! Whole new plan is in the works now.

Kate

kate,
that is great news!!!!!!! sounds like soon you will have 7 days a week!!!!
i can't think of anything better for you guys!!!!
glad i'm not the only one with an inked kid.
but man you should see her dance in a kitchen,no words,no talk, just looked at each other during service, was way kewl!!!
do me a favor if you don't mind and keep your fingers crossed that she gets accepted into a french pastry school that she is applying for. she would be great.
again congrats on the garage door break!!!!!!
jack
ps. by the way when you are on the food network can we say we knew you when???!!!!

Hey Jack!

Now I liked that picture you painted for us! I can just picture you and Kat in my mind. You have a bit of writer in you I suspect! That will work out well when you pen your book!

I will keep positive thoughts going for Kat getting into her school, but I bet she has it all sewn up already. She sounds like a chip off the old block. And that is a compliment.

Open seven days, seven days, seven days .... sounds like the refrain from a bad nightmare to me! Five days are gonna kick my butt! That Friday Saturday run is a tough one for me. I generally only get 3 or 4 hours sleep on either night. Sunday we beat a path to Sam's club. Now it will have to be an early trip to Sam's, Back and prep for Monday. I believe I will have to rethink the schedule. Has to be a better way. I think Wednesday is our easiest day, home town crowd, lots off dinners and I run from 2 till 9. I need some space between some of these venues. It should work out okay.

Food Network???? I am laughing at that one! We very well may see you there, but not us. Wisconsin BBQ is a bit unconventional. When asked what style of BBQ we do I have to say NorthWoods! I get some fishy looks on that one.

I will be happy just to have some good days on a regular basis. Serving good food and having a good reputation is my biggest hurdle. Money is up there too, but fame, if I get my 15 minutes someday I will be surprised!

Thank you for the good thoughts and I am sending them right back at you! And I am still holding out for the paving of your washboard road!

Take care!
Kate

Kate!
You are one lively lady. Now you have a steady gig on top of the others. How do you keep up with all of it! This did work out well for you.
I sent in our entry for the event in October. I hope Jack doesn't hit me with the skillet. This is the second year for this festival. The first year they had 5000, a very small amount of food vendors. I was told by people that went to the festival that people were unhappy because there wasn't enough food. The chamber of commerce says they are only allowing 2 of each type of food vendor. The road has improved and is supposed to be paved and graded by the time of the event. The entry was cheap.
Hoping for the best, here.
Wishing you the best.
Peggy

Hi Peggy!

Not feeling so lively tonight! Feeling t-i-r-e-d. Mentally mostly. I had a call about doing a grand opening tomorrow while I was out working the BBQ trailer today, alone. When it rains it pours. I just can't do it, but I wanted to! I could have done it by myself, I should have said I would do it, On the other hand it is nice to have Thursday to prep for Friday and Saturday. Thinking about it now, I really could have done it. Rats! I am ambivalent.

I am getting a lot of requests for us to do a second day here in town too. I don't think I am thinking straight, maybe I do need Thursday to collect my thoughts. I am trying to watch out for Burn Out. I love what I am doing and want to keep it that way. I have to place some limits on what we are doing. I seem to be keeping up better these days than Patrick though, but I am six years his junior! I run the late night shifts of getting things ready and he is up at the crack of dawn doing his part. Maybe it just seems like he winds down before me because he starts way before me each day. I guess it is good that we can burn both ends of the candle and meet in the middle.

Yeah Peggy! Entry in! It sounds like a great event and with that road getting paved it sounds even better. I was pulling for you on the road. I have visualized that road being paved and remembered you in my prayers. I think fate had you covered on the road! Hide the skillets too! Just in case. You know, when Patrick and I work together we do get along nicely, but ... I must get my feelings hurt at least twice a day! I usually just pout a bit, keep very quiet and he feels really rotten and falls all over himself trying to make me feel better. I can only imagine how the stress of doing a bigger event will fray our nerves. I'd rather get whacked with a skillet than get my feelings hurt!

We will just keep our fingers crossed that things go right for all of us! That the road ahead is smooth!

Thanks for the good wishes. Right back at you!
Kate

T minus seven and counting. Days that is.

We have added a three day event this weekend that we hope will produce a few good days or above average profit. They have the LumberJack competitions in Hayward and we are about a block or less from the site, at a flea market.

The truth is we have no idea of what we are doing! Well, maybe just a small clue. Guessing what you will sell makes my stomach churn.

We ordered our buns for Flambeau-rama next week, today. They are saying 20,000 people coming through. We ordered a little over 1200 buns. I hope we run out! The only saving grace is the Price county fair is two weeks later and there are some other fairs we could run inbetween if we find ourselves stuck with too much. Not having done this before, I am just so unsure of how well we will do. Confidence is on the low side right now. All I can tell you is that I am down right scared right now. Make that terrified.

Please send all your good thoughts our way.

I will keep you posted on how well we do or how badly we do.

Kate

kate,
on the buns peg has had good luck freezing hers for a week with no deterioration in quality.
stay with your KISS theory it will never steer you wrong.
for what it is worth our prayers are with you!!!
jack
ps. re-read the 1st line. kinda looks funny.
pps. my old german chef,chef achatz gave me these words of wisdom and i am sure that he wouldn't be mad at me for passing them along (he had a stroke 2 years ago,vision is double,no sense of balance and has forgotten more than i will ever know) "jack food is like a dog. show it fear and it will bite you. show it respect and it will be your lifelong companion"

I love this stuff. It is like a brotherhood/sisterhood type thing, helping one another. I have no business in the BBQ business, but I do enjoy reading the posts. Best wishes to all who do this. I hope ya'll make a fortune for having the testicles to attempt it. Good luck all.

Jack,

Hmm, Where we live we freeze our buns every winter. Been doing it for years! Have noticed minimal deterioration. We generally freeze them for , oh say, six months! Thay thaw nicely come April or May. Works every time! I know what you mean and Thanks. Good to know.

Seriously, I am really hoping that I will not have to freeze any! I talked to a rep from a local distributor today. He owned a restaurant and did this event for may years including last year. He was VERY helpful. He lost his shirt the first year trying to sell just ribs. I am assuming his ribs are not our kind of ribs. I am going to offer some ribs, but a very limited quantity. The sampler variety. We are also going to stay until the event closes each night. 12 - 1- 1- and 7 the last night. I am worried we will have too many buns and Patrick is concerned we will not have enough. Guess we shall see.

Patrick has come up with a promotion idea that we think is going to be big. I will report on how it works after we use it. See how it works. Share if it is worthy.

I have to say that I am less nervous now. I am getting some grit now.

Damar12 ... You are right, it is an affiliation much like a brotherhood/sisterhood. I have great love, respect and feelings of friendship with the people here. I especially enjoy the professional forum. We are all in the same boat. Thank you for the nice thoughts. Testicles eh? Hey Peggy, that's two!

Now Jack, in line with Peggy's frozen buns I recall you also have something that is frosty! Private joke, oh my, sorry.

I will take any prayers that are out there and say a big thank you!

5 days until we set up. Keep you posted.

Kate

Hi.

For anyone interested, we just finished day 3 of the 4 day event. It has been a real ride so far. Long Long days and short nights to sleep.

First day was good. Good sales and we started getting great word of mouth advertising. Second day picked up even more. This was Friday. We noticed the comments about people being told that they had to try us. We had a pretty busy day. So busy that we finally sold out of product.

Today we went back and we were dragging. We had my son and daughter-in-law working with us Friday and today. We could hardly keep up with the orders. We did sandwiches and dinners, plus ribs. We had a line starting at 11 this morning and we didn't get a break until about 1:30. Even then it just slowed down a bit. Still had people coming and coming. We had never experienced anything like it. It was AWESOME! And they loved us! That was the best part. The Philly Cheese steak stand across from us, well they stood and watched, arms propped on their counter, as the people lined up all the way across to their stand. IT was like we were giving away gold! Again we sold out. We got to come home early tonight, the other nights have been 2 AM, but 11 Pm tonight, after I did a complete and total clean up. We also sold many many I-Talian sodas and creamosas. Truthfully, I think the other food vendors were glad we closed up, they started to get better sales then. All the ime I was cleaning I had people coming up asking for food. I had sold out signs up too. We were totally maxed out on what food we could carry. Demand was greater than supply.

The crowd actually got hostile when we sold out the first night. Kind of scary. The second night they were congradulating us on our days success. The people were just great.

We also did something that Patrick thought of that really pleased the crowd. We had 4 t-shirts made up with our name and a cactus and moon embrodiered on them. Also 4 canvas bags, we decided to give 4 pork and 4 brisket sandwiches away too. We got a roll of double tickets and handed out tickets with the sandwiches and dinners ordered. Each night at 8 we have had a drawing and posted the winning numbers to give away the items. People come back to see if they won and buy more. We keep their tickets in the bowl so they always have the next days chance to win. They absolutely ate this up! Thrilled is the word that comes to mind! It is a real winner for us. The PR we have gained from this home town event is priceless. I know sales on our days here in town are going to skyrocket, I have even had people ask if they could buy a t-shirt. I only bought 4 though. We have gained a reputation, and a good one at that. This has been a tiring and grueling experience, but worth every second. Am I looking forward to 7 pm tomorrow night when it closes? You bet, but I am so glad we did it.

We have made money, gained customers, gotten some exposure and made some very wonderful friends.

Oh, and here is another gratifying bit. We were inspected Thursday by a very good inspector. This is good, he owns a Cook Shack! The man knows quality. I hope if he is ever on here he can throw tips and information our way. He is full of knowledge and a heck of a nice guy. We also had the opportunity to see the inspector that did our state licensing. He came three times to eat at our place, Twice we were sold out. I think he feels that we are a clean place and our food is very good. That is a point of pride for us. Better yet is that he has passed that on to people and that is worth so much to us. We work hard to be the best we can be and to be recognized for it is a real pat on the back.

So, all in all, this has been a very good thing for us. We did learn a few things too. We made some mistakes, a few bad calls on product, but selling out wasn't really a bad thing. The law of supply and demand comes into play here. We became even more desireable.

Well, better quit for now. Just wanted to pass on what was happening. One more day to go.

Thank you to everyone who gave their support and advice to us. Tired as I am I feel GOOD! Actually I feel great.

Thaks all!

Kate

Kate,

Congrats on the success. It's really a pleasure watching your adventure and you'll never know how many people read this and see great ideas.

Good luck and keep 'em coming.

Russ

Hi. Thank you for the congrats and I do hope some of what has been discussed will help others.

It is over now. I am tired and really worn out. Still, I am pleased with our results. Once again we sold out. I wish I had had a second smoker to work with.

We had some real problems during this event. My meat supplier let us down. My sandwich container supplier also let us down. We ran out of pellets today and just squeaked through. We ordered pellets on the 31st I think. They were shipped immediately. This Was NOT Fast Eddie's faut at all. The truck they are coming on is sitting for the last three or four days about 3 hours away from us. First blame goes to us on ordering so late. I can only tell you that things were pretty crazy around here for the last few weeks. But as Isaid, the blame is ours. I can also tell you that last time we ordered they arrived in about 3 days. We thought we had a bit of wiggle room, and we did squeeze through, but it was a tight squeeze. There are ways to make things stretch. I will not elaborate. The sandwich containers are a mystery to me. I had ordered twice from the company. First order came. Second order is still not here and I was so distracted I didn't even realize they were not here until this morning. The meat supplier is another story and she is history now. I have been getting great meat from her but she really did let me down. She did not order the meat I asked for. Her service has been less than good for some time now. A small butcher shop that has been getting my orders for large amounts of meat and I don't feel like I get much appreciation from her. So, she blew it and I am going elsewhere now. A word on local distributors: They stink. I have had a complete lack of attention from them. I get more attention at Sam's Club. I will not even attempt to order from them now. I am talking about restaurant supply companies.

Fortunately, I had back up on the sandwich boxes from Sam's. My syrup supplier was great. FE was super. Sam's Club was there for me too.

I did learn something from this experience. These events can be owvewhelming for a first timer.

Never Panic! Think. Think again. You can overcome most problems and we did. Some better than others.

Doing an even in your hometown is a real boon. We are getting a write up in the local paper with pictures next week. The interview is Thursday. I am following it with an ad that I negotiated for the interview with a follow up ad in shopper paper that is mailed to a huge part of my local area. I offered to buy an ad if they would do the pictures and interview. I initiated the contact and asked for the interview and pictures. They went for it, just as I have found in the past they will.

The biggest thing I learned is that our food is great. I thought it was, but I know it now. I smapled competition and found them lacking. When you put great smoked BBQ against average food you win. People taste the difference and word spreads fast.

I learned a lot . I have more to learn.

I think I am wound down now. It is hard to get back on the level coming off an event like this.

I think I may sleep till noon tomorrow!

Take care!

Kate

Well Kate, take a couple of days, for a good rest, if anyone asks, it must be equipment problems or something. Not a Cookshack problem of course.

By the way I made a rootbeer and a huckleberry creamosa yesterday. As my uncle Jerry used to say, "They were gooder than down town!" but I guess it would be better to say, "Gooder than a milkshake or a float!" especially the rootbeer.

Again congratulations on a successful event!

Hi!

Feeling more rested already!

We feel a bit like celebrities around town. People keep coming up to us and saying great food. Hi, etc. We are not sure who most of them are, but we are pretty sure they ate at Porky Pine Pete's over the last 4 days!

So, gluttons for punishment, we just signed up and paid our entrance fee for the county fair in our own county. It runs four days, five with setup. The entrance fee is about 500 dollars less than this last event and I sincerely believe the gate is more accurate than the hogwash they fed us at the last go. 20,000 my butt. Must have been the same 5000 every day. We did have many four day repeaters on orders too! This county fair is 10 to 12 thousand and I know they must have a handle on how many because they charge to get in. It will be interesting to see if we learned anything!

Jerry, Mmmm, root beer and huckleberry. I love the huckleberry! Mango is actually my new favorite. Root beer is always great! I am glad that you tried them and found them gooder! Thanks for the tip on the seltzer too. I am going to check it out. Thanks for the congrats too!

Now this is Very important. Thank you to Mnhogfarmer, Rootsman, CoffeebluffBBQ, 2Greyhounds and PrisonChef. You have given me advice and ideas on this event and it is sincerely appreciated.

I feel most comfortable talking here in the professional forum. We seem to understand each others plights and concerns. I am grateful to every one of you. If just one of you were gone I would miss you. Thanks for being here. You make this BBQ Business fun!

Take care !

Kate

I had to do the huckleberry. North East Washington, North Idaho and Western Montana are the huckleberry areas of the world. I have some relatives that want me buy a huckleberry place on the way to Priest Lake, where they have a cabin. These people work 24/7 for 3-4 months making all the huckleberry pies they can and then they eat the leftovers the rest of the year I guess. Any the kitchen is really no bigger that my kitchen at home nor better equipped, unless you want to make pies the rest of your life, so far I have resisted and of course they want way to much money.

I've tasted some more of the soda club mixes and so far my Sodee syrups seem as good to much better, except of the cola perhaps. The seltzer I still like, but I only have their numbers price wise to figure the cost. Seltzer home grown from Park Falls seems like a local winner, especially if was a craft water, like a micro brewery.

Well done, Kate. It sure sounds like you did it right.

quote:

The biggest thing I learned is that our food is great.

That is the best lesson....when you realize that your instincts were right. Way to go.
Have fun at the fair. I wish we could do our county fair but they only allow non-profits to vend there.

Keep up the good work!

WTGGGGGGGGG Kate. Glad it all worked out. Good luck in the future.

congrats!!!!!!!!
soon, you will be aswering the questions, here on the forum, instead of asking.
welcome to the profession.
jack, we miss you...how is peggy's recoup????

coffeebluff,
peg is coming along ok. pathology on the mass they took out of her foot showed infection. they are treating it like resistant staph with antibiotics till they know more for sure on the bacteria's type.
past that it's like we said in 69 "it don't mean nothing drive on"
jack

thanks for the update...we will keep yall in our prayers.

Amen!