Toastie Analytics
Today we were at the Farmer’s Market in New Street again, watching the rain and serving a sudden rush of lamb toasties. It led to some thinking, some tea and a hypothesis. Our best selling toastie is the ham and cheese. When we first started toasting it represented roughly half our sales, and was the cheapest savoury toastie. A year later and the cheese and ham share has fallen behind at many events in favour of goats cheese and other, more interesting alternatives. Goat’s cheese has a mysterious hold over people. In a straight up battle of the cheeses I would expect brie, fresh basil and slow roast tomato to beat it every time, but regardless of which goat-based toastie we put forward, the same reaction will follow: “Ooh, goat’s...
Famous
Recently all sorts of new activities have been cropping up for us and the Beast. Street food is gradually gaining traction in Birmingham and nationally the whole idea is becoming more acceptable. This means there are lots of opportunities for free publicity going and, while I’m really not a fan of advertising in the traditional sense, a bit of free PR never did anyone any harm. One of the goals I set myself, way back in the early days, was to try and make a mark on the street food scene. I’m not sure I ever mentioned it here, as in my head it sounded way too close to me saying “Our street food will make us famous”, but the desire was there. Now we are two years older, especially the van and Barny, and we are actually getting...
Brum Yum Yum King’s Heath – Trader’s Perspective
Last Saturday was Brum Yum Yum. Foodie haven, street food bonanza and the most unexpected, tiring and exciting event in the year so far. Here is my perspective on how last Saturday went. Barny had a back operation on the Tuesday, meaning the toastie prep, van cleaning and packing were down to me, so Barny just had to drive the van down there and then kip in the car for the rest of the day. We’d even organised a sleepover in Birmingham for the Beast with Jack, organiser of Digbeth Dining Club and long-time sympathiser of temperamental vans. Friday was hard. As always the customers and atmosphere at DDC were fantastic, but it was the busiest night since the launch, and Barny was in increasing amounts of pain, unable to take morphine because we needed to get...
Anticipation
This week has been, and will continue to be, rather rushed. It’s why I’m only just sitting down to start the blog now, at 9pm, rather than having spent the last three hours ponderously typing out the first few paragraphs while I potter round our various social media pages adding insight and cat pictures. The week is busy because after a lovely but hasty weekend with Barny’s side of the family he went into surgery on Tuesday to have a chronic back problem operated on. Bad timing in some ways, as next week is our only holiday of the season and this weekend is his transition from 20-something to old. As it stands though, the summer is nearly full, which is fantastic but does mean that we don’t really have room for two week recuperation periods...
The Weather
I know it’s a stupidly British thing to talk about, but pull up a cuppa, queue yourself a crumpet and lets have a communal moan about not complaining about the weather. Obviously in our line of work, what with most of that line being exposed the the elements, the weather can make or break a festival. Our usual nemesis, rain, has been unusually quiet since we got our magnificent food van back, because we are now immune to it once again, even if our customers are not. Instead we are faced with this endless winter. Admittedly the sun was shining today, but speaking as someone who spent the entire day outdoors watching people forlornly scurrying between shops while dodging the omnipresent charity workers I can tell you it was not a pleasant temperature to be...
The Return Of The Toastie
It’s important that you read toastie in the title to rhyme with Jedi. Even if it makes you sound a little like an Essex native. That way I can justify any inadvertent Star Wars references later. He’s back! After 6 weeks we finally have the Beast back on our drive, and the road looks right again. I had no idea how wound up you could get about a rusty collection of nuts and bolts held together with paint, but it turns out that I’m really quite fond of him these days. Partly, of course, because he is the whole concept behind our business, but also because we’ve been through a lot now, and he has mostly kept on chugging. The Jabberwocky is now better off by one new second hand radiator, one clutch, a half set of spark plugs and a...
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