Our Season Begins March 4

Our season begins on March 4. We are committed to doing a monthly market and show on the first weekend of the month. It pulls in about 2500+ a weekend and has very limited food vendors. We are probably going to be the primary food vendor for the entire year. March is a little early for our shaved ice and icy desserts so we are going to add some food items. In keeping with our Tropical Breeze theme we are going to add some kind of chicken salad sandwich, maybe a Cuban and have a banana pudding dessert. Since this is a monthly event we may shake up the menu from time to time. Once it starts getting warm our shaved ice and ice cream desserts will take off.
 
So far we have over 20 events booked for 2011 and are stilling adding. This will be our first complete year with the trailer. It will be a growing year and will give us time to start culling and adding events for next year. We are still trying to figure out how to go full time. We are looking into doing some low key catering. Our trailer is not equipped for cooking so we are looking at doing continental type breakfasts and sandwich type lunches. We have some contacts in local businesses that use caterers for training and sales seminars. We are also still looking at maybe doing something roadside, we have found a loophole in the laws and are currently talking with a couple of restaurants about doing an extended food service with them.
 
If any of you are in the Metro Atlanta Area check our Face Book page (Atlanta Tropical Breeze) for events we will be attending.

Good luck Jody!
 
Follow on Facebook!
 
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Atlanta-Tropical-Breeze/135354816496031

Go get em.

hey....you cought my attention with the cuban.....do you have a tested recipe? apparently there are more then a few different ways to make one.....
 
good luck with the season! im just geting everything together to put my truck out there, so my first full season wont be until next year, but im looking forward to breaking the ice this fall at several local events

Nice looking trailer on your facebook page!  Good luck with your season....sounds like you're off to a good start!  We're still waiting on our first "new" trailer to arrive from the dealer.  We're trying to book a few events but it's hard without pics / graphics....our dealer has really screwed us up with our build time but we will prevail in the end get started around May hopefully!  We're in south Georgia and have plans to work the festival / event circuit down this way.  Again good luck and best wishes!
Scubaguy
Nashville, GA

Scubaguy we have been following your post on your trailer. Sorry for all the trouble you are having. We started last year with our trailer and booked mostly small events we where familiar with. On weekends that we didn’t have anything booked we visited other festival and took pictures and logged the different vendors. This way we had an idea of what festival to book for this year. Our main product is shaved ice and specialty fruit cups we make with the shaved ice. Believe it or not we have several shaved ice competitors; most of them operate out of tents and do not offer what we offer. We decided this year to promote the ice cream and shaved ice desserts we make and add an additional desert item like a banana pudding. We also do a lemon shake-up made with fresh lemons. During your first event make sure to carry your camera and make some decent pictures of your set up. We have developed a flyer we send along with applications and also email it to events we are inquiring about.
 
GoBurgerR we make a traditional Cuban sandwich. Thin sliced pork, thin sliced ham, white cheese topped with thin sliced pickles and Rojo sauce in Cuban bread buttered and toasted in a sandwich press.  This is the way most of the early Cuban bakeries in south Florida used to make them. You can easily make up a few in advance then add the Rojo sauce and butter the bread prior to toasting.   A great side item if you can find them is Plantain chips.
 
Another item we are adding is a chicken salad sandwich. In keeping with our tropical theme we are adding grapes and nuts to it. We have had several requests to offer an alternative to fried foods. Also very few of the food vendors we have seen offer a lighter food item. Sandwiches are easy to make and generally have a good cost to profit margin. At the monthly market we are doing we will probably offer two or three varieties of sandwiches. We plan only to offer sandwiches at the monthly market and any festivals we can’t get into with the shaved ice and deserts.
You can sell a sandwich combo with chips and a drink at most festivals for around $6.00+ all day long. Cool thing about sandwiches it that it doesn’t require a lot of cooking apparatus. We just installed a small commercial refrigerator in our trailer and purchased new food pans for it.  We are looking for a small sandwich press for the Cubans. Other than that we took up very little floor space and added a decent profit center.
We tried doing hot dogs last year. Number one problem was that every other food vendor sold hot dogs. Number two problem if you match their prices then you have to sell a lot of hot dogs to make money. We sell a 100% beef hot dog in our auction house snack bar for $2.00 plain and $2.50 dressed and we pay no rent or overhead. We would see hot dogs sold for $2.00 at the festivals all the time. You can’t get ahead selling at those prices at festivals. Said thing about it is that we have a good set up for hot dogs; a Star hot dog steamer, a food warmer with two trays for chili & kraut; and cold containers for cheese and slaw. We made the hot dog how the customer wanted complete with condiment. We just couldn’t compete with the other food vendors.