🤠 2022 Recap and Thoughts
I won't be able to capture the full year in one quick post here, but it's nice to have a time capsule that can portray the essence of it. It was an action-packed 12 months. Watching our recap videos and looking back at moments from February when we were doing the Super Bowl commercials, it feels like forever ago. However, simultaneously it seems as if it all flew by. I can look back and see landmark moments throughout the year that make it feel longer, but without viewing those moments directly it's a whirlwind and a blur. An exciting, interesting, nerve-wracking, stressful, and enjoyable one at that. Here are several superlatives for 2022. Some based on my personal opinion, and some objective ones, enjoy.
Good Vibes Tune of The Year: 🎵🎸🎶 We're always playing music around the tent/cart, so figured this should be a category. Have to keep the vibes high with some tuneage, now on to this year's winner:
Bill Withers - Lovely Day - ❤️ The possibilities seem endless when you fire this one up, here's to many more plays and RIP to one of the greats. His voice lives on.
Employee (Volunteers) of the Year: All of 'em, can't thank family and friends enough for the the support. We couldn't do it without you and you help us out of the kindness of your heart. Sorry Rich and Tom, couldn't find a pics!
Funniest Comment from a Customer: "Great sandwiches guys." -George. This one gave us both a hearty laugh😭, if my grandpa were alive, I could see him saying this.
Taquito Flavor the Year: This is akin to Best Picture at the Oscar's. The due diligence that went into this one was tedious. The winner was obvious in hindsight as it was introduced early on in the year (Jan 2022) and has become a staple of the menu. Not going away any time soon either, drum roll.......... 🤤🤤🤤
RANCHERO CHICKEN
Best Beer from a Brewery: One More Time Around from Artifact Brewery. Banger, clean haze. 🍺🔥🌁
Highest Event Sales Day of the Year: Ambler Oktoberfest Saturday, shout out the people of Ambler for eating 632 taquitos 🌯, before sunset 🌅 .
Musical Act of the Year: No competition, it has to be Crazy Chester.
Process Improvement of the Year (boring): Hmm there are some extra, extra boring excel-based improvements, raw material purchasing changes I could use. Or a bit more exciting, cooking processes that have been changed or updated for quality and efficiency over the past year. However, I'm going to choose one of the most simple changes we made in the on-site set-up. We couldn't believe how dumb we were thinking back on it that we had it any other way. We flipped the flat top 180 degrees so everyone could see the griddle man's face and the communication was 100% easier. An effortless change of perspective. Pics below:
OLD
NEW - VOILA
Bowtie Pic of the Year: Another prestigious category, this one was subjective. This means I scrolled back through all the pics on my phone that had bowties (a lot) and I picked the one which that made me laugh immediately. The winner is a pic of Brotherly love, which we're all about here. What a pose 😂!
General highlights off the top of my head: Manayunk StrEat Food Festival, Cinco De Mayo catering for 300 people (whew, thanks ab), taco introduction and improvements, First event with the cart, serving at the local alma maters, Crazy Chester event, Folk Festival serving laughs
General lowlights off the top of my head: hurricane force wind derailment @ Well Crafted Ambler, folk festival preparation debacles (could write a couple paragraphs on this, but hey you learn from your mistakes), losing the kitchen
A Few Words to Wrap-Up, Looking Forward
As I discussed at length in this post, https://bow-tie-business-blog.ghost.io/one-year-in-what-ive-learned/, the amount we both learned about business, ourselves, cooking, etc. has been astounding. One of the greatest joys I took from this year was being the reason for people to come together. Old friends seeing each other for the first time in a while, people making new connections and new memories. It felt right to round out the year at Ten7 which was one of the first spots we took our pop-up shop on the road to.
At times it is stressful in the moment, working harder for less income, but at the end of the day life isn't about just money. We've met so many good people already through this business, and ran across so many old faces that I never would've seen otherwise. We've had the freedom to be creative, envision things and make them happen in the world.
Every day has been an adventure. Maybe some times that's a bad thing but it keeps you on your toes. The breadth that you need to learn to run your own business is even wider than I would have expected. We have just added another layer to that by getting the food cart into operation. Hitching a trailer, making sure it's level and conducive to cooking, getting used to new equipment, finding a place for all of our accessories and creating new serving processes is hard work. There should be a blooper reel of my back-up/parking misadventures. Only one way to learn I guess and no damage done yet!
We've been living outside of our comfort zone and it provides a different perspective as well as a great opportunity for personal growth. Nothing taken for granted and new challenges all of the time. Solidifying our kitchen space is the current challenge that we'll need to overcome to keep going and growing! Updates to come. Thanks one and all for your support, couldn't do it without that!