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Does anybody have any experience with mobile catering?
I'm thinking of a career change and my idea is a veggie catering van. The veggie side of things wouldn't be stressed to much as I don't want to put off meat eating people. Essentially it would be just good food that happens to be meat free?
Doing rough calculations I think I could make a comfortable living from it, obviously more research is required but initial thoughts and findings are positive.
Ideally I would like to do bikey outdoor type events but also thinking a office complex/industrial estate type thing Mon - Fri.
Any STW thoughts?
Mobile phones don't tend to eat much, ime. Might be onto a loser there.
HTH.
Second-hand over the fence chat so NOT personal experience.
Someone a few doors down used to to do this. Pasties was their product but that's not important. For shows they would have to pay fees of £k to secure a pitch, I think up front though not 100% on that. You would bid for a pitch to the organiser. Then the risk of bad weather e.t.c. I think they stopped in the end because some guy with lots of vans was over bidding on loads of shows just to become a dominate player. When it went well though I think it made good money. Obviously it's still a viable business but some points to think off.
Ran the kitchen in a Mexican food van that went round the festivals for two years, awsome experience and made alot of money, really really hard work especially with partying afterwards, one of the best experiences I've had.
The Loco pit area may have some mean chilli coming out of it at the races this year if i get time to set up a reasonable kitchen 😀
Most of the folk I've chatted to seem to do ok out of it. They often work the summer then either do something else or nothing all winter, which isn't a bad life.
However - if you do it, PLEASE PLEASE SELL MORE THAN JUST BLOODY BURGERS AND BACON BUTTIES! Sick to death of this!
And can the alternative option be something other than just tomatoey pasta?
Loco - if you are doing a variety of tex mex food then let me know what races you will be at and I'll enter them 🙂
The stuff we used to do was veggie chilli, fresh roasted belly pork and black bean burritos e.t.c
Quite alot of prep, but was really popular and the chap that owns the company now has 4 or 5 units and is raking it in.
Will be posting race dates on the site in the next few week once the van and all other stuff is sorted, not catering as such, but may have a few post race 'parties' if have time
I'm thinking veggie chilli for jacket spuds and burrito type affairs.
Falafel wraps
'nice' salad pots
Deli type sandwichs
Really don't want to do panini's as they have been done to death and then some!
If I go for interesting, it means more prep time but gives me more of a unique offering.
I've a bit of experience with this, working veggie vans at festivals everything from the biggies Glastonbury, V etc down to smaller farmers shows.
The guy I worked for ran it with his brother a few of full time time staff and loads of PT weekend helpers we had 4 trailers & a marque off at different shows May to September. Hard work during this time - 7 days a week with some 20h days over the weekends - it paid well though and was great fun.
If you have any specific questions fire away.
LoCo - Who was it you worked for?
Festival food is usually c$*p! I know there is a a really nasty lot who extort money from vendors wanting pitches at such events. This is why, as a festival goer, one pays an arm and a leg for utter rot!
What about doing a round of the local industrial parks? There's no pitch fees there, but take a baseball bat to defend yourself in case thugs come to move you off their turf 😉
Alternatively, you could supply delicatessen and cafe's.
Sante Fe catering, Henry
As daft as it sounds people do keep mentioning the not so nice underworld of mobile catering with turf wars etc.
phil.w do you have any experience of this?
Before you start your business and spend time and money, talk to your local environmental health officer to see what you need to do to become compliant with current hygiene regulations. You don't want to get caught out for some breach of their rules and get fined. Worse still, you don't want to poison anyone!
Conduct a few surveys on a cross section of your target customers to find out what they want and how much they would be prepared to pay. There are so many startups that fail because individulas indulge their passion, not their potential customers'!
Business plan?
There was an Ice cream turf war a while back at Avebury in wiltshire, when I was working as a Warden for the National trust, Strawberry Mivvis at dawn
If you do it, and you want to coin it in, have a word with your friendly local international sports stadium. If the prices and quality of food available at Murrayfield during the 6 Nations is anything to go by, you could curl one out onto a breadcake, slap a slice of plastic cheese on top and make £3.95 clear profit on each one.
I've got a business plan template that I am trying to adapt as I would need to source external funding.
I think I need to get a calendar of all events in my area Notts/Derbyshire/Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and figure out what provisions are currently in place (thinking out loud)
LoCo, guessed as much, I know Henry. I worked for Goodness Gracious.
biga1 - we never did side of the road stuff so can't comment on that. But at festivals the best pitches are given to returning traders and this can have a massive influence on takings.
And the traditional burger and chippy vans are run like a cartel. They are not in direct competition with the alternative food so we never had any problems with them.
The organisers at festivals often try to set the prices which can cause some issues, especially when they try & make you charge £1.50+ for a bottle of water.
For big events, you've got Headingley for when the Cricket season kicks off, and Cadwell Park & Donnington for the various motorsport events throughout the summer. There's Matlock for all the bikers whenever there's an inkling of a dry weekend. All the local summer shows...
If you haven't already take a look at the http://www.ncass.org.uk/ website lots of ideas and pointers and also there is a bit of a growing trend for good street food happening at the moment try http://britishstreetfood.co.uk/ organised by Richard Johnson for ideas of what seems to be on trend and remember facebook and twitter are also proving good areas for marketing. Good luck. As for turf wars I work for Jiffy Trucks and in 15 years we have not come across anything significant. The areas you seem to be looking at probably wont attract so many people of that nature. Lastly just another one to look at http://www.eat.st/