A Day In The Life Of The Jabberwocky
Every event is a little different, but most of the time they will be something like this. It starts the day before, with a deep clean of the van. Cleaning is a pretty big theme here, brace yourselves. Every surface inside the van has to be scrubbed, then antibacked, then wiped. This takes a few hours, and is an strangely pleasing bonding experience. I hate cleaning, but cleaning the van is mildly less dissatisfying. I think mostly because cleaning, in the world at large, is basically endless, but at least in the van you are heading off on an adventure. Followed of course, by more cleaning. A day time event starts with an early morning. How early will depend on how close the event is and how well prepared we are from the night before. Experience has taught us that...
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...
The Digbeth Dining Comeback
This Friday we will be heading back to Digbeth Dining Club, first of the New Year, finest street food in Birmingham and all round happy place. But. Last week I was hopeful, and panic-buying teapots more to calm the nerves than because I actually believed the Beast would not be back. And yet here we are, and here is willow pattern teapot with a gilt finish. The van is still not on our drive. He is up in Leicester, with his engine out on a rack and our hopes strewn messily around him. Without wishing to sound negative; it doesn’t look terribly promising. So because nothing short of actual zombies will stop us trading at Digbeth this weekend we have been working on a backup. While one of the Jabberwocky’s most characteristic features may well be a...
The Dos and Don’ts
I’m currently working on a page about starting a street food business, with useful advice on the 10 dos and 143 don’ts of taking up the tongs and trying to make a living out of other people’s change. This last week has been all about the van, and about the sad demise of Gogo – Barny’s beloved Toyota MR2 – who, through no fault of her own, got a hole in the radiator. Do: Combine car shopping with Jabberwocky errands – It’s like a whole world of miniature adventures. Don’t: Suggest Ford Kas. I can’t quite work out why, but every time I found a nice-looking one Barny got this twitch. So we embarked on a jumbled shopping trip over the weekend to find a new floor for the Jabberwocky, as the lino is getting a...
The Time To Run A Business
Back when the Beast had only just hatched, in the days when the Wocky was young and first peered out into the big wide world, we wondered idly if we would have enough time to get everything done. I used to work a 9-5 rat-race type job at a big company. Each day I would go to work, do a mixed bag of nothing for 8 hours and then come home, exhausted, and crash on the sofa. Weekends were gone in minutes, and my existence seemed to be rushing past me so fast that I couldn’t possibly have time for an extra hobby. The dawn of the Jabberwocky was mostly a realisation that having a business must be what it’s like to have a dog, or children, or perhaps an expensive combination of both that unlike the other two, we are legally allow to take to bits if we feel...
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