🧠 TWO Years In - What ELSE Have We Learned?

Uh-oh, we're back!!!!!! 2 years in now, the time flies. I can tell you that as lesson number one. This is a follow-up to last year's version, see here: https://smallbusinessblog.ghost.io/one-year-in-what-ive-learned/. I will try not to repeat anything, which shouldn't be too difficult considering how dynamic running a business is. There are a couple larger changes that have happened in the past year which I'll highlight. Then we'll just see what else comes to my mind when thinking back. Once again before getting into it, I want to thank anyone who's reading this for your interest, and I'm sure your support, so we could survive another year. It's a business that cannot succeed without a strong community and we are thankful to have that!

Alright for the big ones.......

THE TRAILER (with sub categories): This is easily the most drastic change of the year. We purchased it last year after meeting with a manufacturer and customizing the equipment it would contain and what size we wanted. That process took a bit (started mid/late summer) and we finally took delivery of it in December brand spankin' new. It was custom made by a company out of Philly. They purchased the sheet metal, fabricated the trailer, and bought/installed the cooking equipment. The manufacturer took us through the in's and out's of it and how to use everything: the propane valves, the steam table, the ice table, the hot water heater, the fresh/waste water tanks, the fridge, the window, etc. We took videos which were helpful to refer back to.

Driving: I definitely will not forget the feeling of picking it up.  Safe to say I was nervous driving it home from Philly that day with absolutely zero experience in the "towing a trailer" category. I watched my fair share of youtube videos, but that doesn't compare to reality when you have a decent portion of your livelihood being dragged behind you at 60 MPH. As far as driving, the worry dissipated quickly once I realized it was secure and didn't really change the turn radius. Making sure it was secure was the main thing. The learning that took time was parking, specifically backing up. Those who have driven a trailer know the pain. The trailer moves the opposite way of the vehicle and is extremely sensitive. Once it gets off-kilter, it can be hard to correct. It takes practice to gain comfort with it which we have had plenty of!!!!

Food Service: This aspect wasn't too much different. However, with the new piece of equipment, we also wanted to offer an expanded menu more consistently. The difficulty in offering bowls and menu items with fresh toppings from the pop-up was lack of cold storage. When you're using a bunch of coolers and a small portable ice tray, the capacity just wasn't there. This means the main learning was serving the new menu items consistently. We now offer bowl 95% of the time we're out serving a public menu and we usually one taco special per week. This required us to change up some of what we do as far as prepping. Before the trailer it was just prepackaged sauces that we brought on-site cold. Now it's that as well as squeeze bottles of sauce, a variety of diced or chopped vegetables and cold proteins when doing tacos that we then heat on the griddle.

It adds time in the kitchen beforehand slicing, chopping, and dicing but the better product is most definitely worth it. Cilantro, pickled red onion, bell peppers, and tomatoes are the norm for our fresh veggie selection. We also started offering fresh salsa verde at every event meaning we blend that each day of service. Took a while to dial in the right recipe and ingredients but we like we are with it now! These are small improvements that have definitely led to higher quality food. When doing tacos, it has also helped us cutdown on waste somewhat, since we are bringing the meats cold and heating up as we go with the extra griddle space. Overall, it has led us learn how to serve a wider variety of higher quality food (not without a bunch of small struggles in between).

HIRING: We finally hired a true part-time employee, we welcomed Dom to the team in mid-May. Through this process there have many other learnings. We had to get a payroll system set-up, create a job listing/expectations, create interview questions, list of qualifications and more. We did post the job publicly on Indeed originally and received a slow trickle of applications until it was about 15-20 after a couple weeks. It's kind of a crapshoot and harder to vet who you're hiring when it's from a public platform like that. We knew going into it that we would rather hire someone who was referred to us from a friend or family member because of this. We were lucky enough to make a connection that way!

Then it was just creating a work schedule with some time for training and determine the exact accountabilities. It took some trial and error but we had documentation ready to answer many of the frequent questions you're asked as the point of sale operator. Dom did well with a lot of learning on the fly and dealing with the tight quarters on the trailer. It was also good for us to have a consistent outside perspective. It has laid the foundation for us to continue hiring when we need to bring on more help and should make that process smoother going forward.  

Expansion is tough and it becomes a chicken or the egg problem. You need more employees to book more business, but you also need confirmed consistent business to hire more employees. This is something we are currently learning but have not found a clear solution or path forward just yet.

Alright for the random list that comes to my mind when thinking back (which I know you have all been waiting for)............

-private parties are sweet

-Having plenty of kitchen storage space makes life easier, but you still find a way to max it out quickly

-cleaning never stops

-loyal customers are the best, especially on a slow day

-It's hard to describe a food trailer to people as compared to a normal truck or pop-up tent set-up

-people in the food truck/mobile food community are extremely helpful to each other

-The winter crunch on finances in this business is a regular occurrence no matter how you slice, need to diversify income streams

-open commissary kitchens are few and far between

-rice is so plentiful and cheap that ya feel like an idiot if you run out of it (which has never happened to us......)

-5-star reviews are important

-We should do more weddings (if you're having a farm/backyard wedding, hit us up!!!)

-things bounce around A LOT MORE in a trailer than a vehicle

-I need to be more organized

-re-orienting on priorities needs to be a scheduled activity (especially in the busy season).

Ah damn, just realized I am one day late with this version, see you next year on 9/26 as regularly scheduled! And that concludes my incoherent rambling for another year!