Summer 2023

 

Ahhhhhh........ What a grand and glorious morning. As I sit here at our table sipping my morning coffee, I pause and look up at the calendar. To my shock and bewilderment, I see that it is October 15th.

"Lisa! Lisa!" I yell. I look over at her and she looks like she was just run over by a truck.

"What happened to me? Was I in a coma for the last 5 months? Tell me woman! And what happened to you? Did you fall off a horse and get dragged for a mile?" I asked. So many questions racing through my head.

"What happened to September? August? July? June? May?!" My mind reeling out of control.

All she could muster was a faint whisper that said, "You had this bright idea of owning a food trailer, dumbass."

Well she never really said dumbass, but I could see it in her eyes.

So, here we are. Our last and final event for the summer is in the books now. After the dust has settled we ended up doing 92 events this summer. Not bad considering that this was our first year owning and operating a food trailer. For those that need to catch up about our food trailer they can do so by clicking this link here. The Learning Curve

This past summer went by so fast. Moving from one event to the next. It all is such a blur. As I said in our last blog, we have learned a ton of what to do and what not to do. Like one of my life's motto says. "Work smarter, not harder". Next year we will definitely put that to work for us. Another one of my motto's is to "Adapt, improvise and overcome". From the way we started this season to the way we ended proves that we have done that.

It doesn't really sound that bad until you really delve into the numbers. Like working 92 days out of around 150. But those numbers really don't take into consideration the amount of prep work before the events. The number of days when we didn't work but we ended up driving to Fargo (an hour each way) to get supplies. Also the amount of time it took to clean up after the events. Pots and pans don't clean themselves you know. Never in our wildest dreams had we ever thought that owning a food trailer would be so much work. Don't get me wrong. It has its pros and cons, like anything.

We have met many new people in our little food trailer community here that we never would have before. Simply because we ended up working so many of the same events together. We don't consider ourselves competition like so many other types of businesses do. But rather the more there are the better the business for each of us. Except on a few occasions where we went to an event thinking that there would be other trailers there and there weren't. Then we get all of the business and sell out and then pass out. 

We really enjoyed the positive feedback on our food. So many people have said that they are surprised that that came out of a food trailer and just how much they loved what we were serving. That really makes up for some of the hard work that is involved in doing it all. I am proud to say that I think our quality of food always remained on the same level as from when we started, all the way up until our final day.

So out of the entire summer I would have to say that we had maybe 10 days off that we didn't have to do anything at all for an event or what we refer to as doing trailer stuff. 

Some more numbers for you. We had 2,596 transactions. It seemed like a million. 1520 sandwiches. Again, it seemed like a million. 919 bowls of soup. That's 11,028 ounces of soup or 86 gallons of soup. When you add in the 8 oz. cups of soup, the numbers go even higher. 321 cups of soup for 2,568 ounces or another 20 gallons. I only include those soup numbers because Harry and Jim would text me daily wondering how much soup we sold. I never get a break from them.

That is pretty much our summer in as nutshell. Now we can put that trailer away until spring and concentrate on other things. We still have a house to finish and we want to start an addition on to it. Maybe i can talk Lisa into a vacation also. Maybe there is a soup seminar in Vegas or something. Then we could write it off. 

I want to thank all of our family and friends who helped and supported us on this crazy ride.

Until next time.