Questions for BBQ Concessioners

[Rob B.]

I was doing some more brainstorming (uh-oh /infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif ) last night on my school-based barbecue fundraising challenge. What about taking my soon-to-be pit to the local city events, such as the art shows and Mardi Gras celebrations and selling barbecue? I'm thinking 4 events a year. I think I could talk the event organizers in to not charging me vendor fees. Manpower would not be a problem. My unknown areas are: health department/permitting requirements (where to start, how much, etc), and typical profits - how much can we hope to make based on 7,500 attendance for the art shows, and 30,000 attendance for the Mardi Gras? I know the profit question is impossible to answer very accurately, but I'm just trying to get a feel for the situation and figure out if it's even worth considering. If you don't want to post $$ amounts here, you can always email them to me in confidence.

I have great meat and seasonings connections, as well as access to a commercial kitchen and food service workers (for free) to help with prep and storage. And I'm confident in my abilities to put out a great product at good prices. And if you love what you're doing, it's not really work, right? /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

So what do you think? Any suggestions, ideas, warnings? /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

 

[Bruce Cook]

First I would suggest contacting the local health department and find out their requirements. With that information you can begin to further develop a plan. I'm sure you will have to have an approved trailer/cooking/serving area at all of your events. Cold and hot storage. etc.

 

[BrockinFLA]

Rob,

You could probably take some perliminary calqulations from your fundraising experiences at the school. If nothing else it might get you into the ball park.

Figure this...

How many people know you are there selling and how many people come up and buy BBQ from total that know you are there. That would give you a rough percentage of what to prepare for as far as how much BBQ to have on hand ready to sell.

Take that ratio and apply it to the 7,500 person event. Also keep in mind that at the school BBQ sale your the only guy in town, at the 7500 and 30,000 person events you will have some competition. So keep that in mind as well.

These outside festivals are slaves to the weather. Keep an eye on weather. If its going to be nasty reduce your inventory by 2/3 if you decided to show up at all.

Profit wise is simple. Your product is worth whatever people are willing to pay for it. Basics tell you to cover your inventory costs, labor, etc. What you can get over and above cost of sales is up to you and all yours. The way I see it you can take two routes. Lots and plenty of decent BBQ for a buch of people (volume) or slightly limited "Damn good pee your pants" BBQ for a pre determined amount of people (quality). Either approach when exploited will be good in the profit collumn.

Call your local county govt. License or permit to sell food at these organizations will probably be in the $125 neighborhood based on Hotdog cart salesman I talked to one time.