Interested In Opening A Concession

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Gunman9

Knows what a fatty is.
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Hey brethren,

Looking at starting up a concession to do roadside concession part of the year and fairs during fair season. I have done a lot of reading and information searching, and have a base for what is needed. I know that I will need to purchase a trailer that is built around what I will be making. I guess what information I am looking for from anyone that has experience doing this is:

1) what can one expect in profit margin to earn at fairs? I know what local food trucks are averaging here.

2) Is the book available online that list all the fairs accurate and is it a good buy for references?

3) How difficult is it to break into the fair circuit?

4) Any other useful advice/information would be greatly appreciated!

Also, I'm looking for more advice and information than I am questions. I have done a lot of research and know all I need to as far as legality, health department, and LLC.
 
I can share a little bit but the info you're looking for varies dramatically from place to place.

Net profit: I'm not a good resource. The booths I do are all volunteer labor. But, I can say we call a fair successful if we net at least 40%. As a non-profit, I have a lot of advantages and can make good money where others can't.

The only real reliable info about any festival is your experience from the last year. There are some blogs etc. that will give festival locations and maybe contact info, but, the attendance figures, number of vendors, etc. is always exaggerated.

If the festival is worth doing, it's difficult to get in. The best festivals give preference to repeat vendors. If it's really easy to get in or, if they approach you, it's probably not real profitable.
 
Thanks for the info! I have seen there is a book that list all the fairs in the country? Is this worth buying? Also is there advice as far as buying my first concession? I'm really looking for as much information from someone that already does this. Hopefully to avoid some of the mistakes and go about this the best way as possible. Kind of a mentor thing I guess. Lol. I would rather take advice and listen to someone that does this than go in blind folded.
 
I can't say anything about the book for or against. I've always found whatever I needed by searches on the net. I've looked at the books and online lists; ever saw a reason to buy it as there was nothing I didn't already know. But again, I only do a few local festivals and I've gotten to the point where I only do the profitable ones. We turn down more than we agree to do.

This is not easy money! It's as much about the love of BBQ as it is trying to squeeze a buck. Profitable festival foods are those that can be marked up 500% (ie corn dogs, blooming onions, etc). You can hit your BBQ cost about 300% but after that sales take a big hit.

In my booth, labor is volunteer, most permits are reduced price or free, insurance is no additional charge, no income tax, and, we aren't cheap. I honestly don't know how other festival BBQ outfits are able to make enough to make it worth while. (Actually, I don't think they do which is why they move on or quit doing festivals)

Perhaps you could try a small festival, maybe 2K-3K attendance where you are the sole vendor. It's a good way to "get your feet wet". Only problem with this is food cost. If you have a series of festivals, you don't have to be as concerned about how much food you purchase. Whatever is left (uncooked) you can sell at the next festival. But if you only have one festival or the last festival for the year, all the leftover food goes to food cost.
 
I agree it's about the love of BBQ!! The only reason I am even considering trying this venture! So basically you can sell BBQ but if you don't do high profit, high volume items as well there's no money to be had? I'm looking to start out small. I plan on doing festivals during that season and the rest of the time doing Road Side here locally. What does it take to get into a state fair? Is that where the money is in the larger fairs? I personally know a gentleman that does big fairs for the fair season and he profits $250,000 a year. Granted I take that with a very large grain of salt as to wether that's accurate or not. He has given me some advice but from what he has told me is more the kind of advice for someone that is established than someone starting off. I'm kind wondering what the Do's and Don'ts are for someone want to enter the concession world.
 
I do not do fairs or festivals, I used to do them with a charity and with most all of our entry costs covered, and a good weekend take was still around $1500. If you do the math, that comes to $72,000 a year, with no pay for labor. I do have a friend that is a very successful restauranteur out here, owning parts or all of 3 restaurants now, and it was 6 until he got sick a year ago. Here was his experience.

He bought a Southern Pride 1000 pound smoker, a vending booth and did all the work to get into the County Fair. He was commisaried out of his catering and event center. He already had the cooks and labor paid for out of his catering gigs, and his cost per fair was going to be largely food, entry and sales people, he assumed 3 per shift. His end game number was that he felt he had to have an item under $10 per total sale to compete.

He settled on Pulled Pork sandwiches, Smoked sausage sandwiches and drinks. Cole slaw was on both sandwiches. The cost, to be under $10 had to be a 3 ounce portion of pork, standard bun, 3/4 ounce of slaw. Sauce in squirt bottles. At $2.00 per sandwich for street vending, cost would be around $6 for this product, at the fair, he had to push to $9 to make a little money. In the end, after four events, he folded, the actual sales were losers, the amount of sauce, normally a give away was more than his profit. In truth, the amount of BBQ you can sell for less than $10 (at a fair) leaves people unhappy. The additional costs, including paying for the access to the fair/festival, included percentage of sales (all major fairs/festivals/promoters out here now charge this), cost to travel, waste, electrical and water (not always free) and additional wear and tear on equipment. He still does vending, but, only for local events.
 
landarc said:
I do not do fairs or festivals, I used to do them with a charity and with most all of our entry costs covered, and a good weekend take was still around $1500. If you do the math, that comes to $72,000 a year, with no pay for labor. I do have a friend that is a very successful restauranteur out here, owning parts or all of 3 restaurants now, and it was 6 until he got sick a year ago. Here was his experience.

He bought a Southern Pride 1000 pound smoker, a vending booth and did all the work to get into the County Fair. He was commisaried out of his catering and event center. He already had the cooks and labor paid for out of his catering gigs, and his cost per fair was going to be largely food, entry and sales people, he assumed 3 per shift. His end game number was that he felt he had to have an item under $10 per total sale to compete.

He settled on Pulled Pork sandwiches, Smoked sausage sandwiches and drinks. Cole slaw was on both sandwiches. The cost, to be under $10 had to be a 3 ounce portion of pork, standard bun, 3/4 ounce of slaw. Sauce in squirt bottles. At $2.00 per sandwich for street vending, cost would be around $6 for this product, at the fair, he had to push to $9 to make a little money. In the end, after four events, he folded, the actual sales were losers, the amount of sauce, normally a give away was more than his profit. In truth, the amount of BBQ you can sell for less than $10 (at a fair) leaves people unhappy. The additional costs, including paying for the access to the fair/festival, included percentage of sales (all major fairs/festivals/promoters out here now charge this), cost to travel, waste, electrical and water (not always free) and additional wear and tear on equipment. He still does vending, but, only for local events.
Click to expand...

Oh wow. This is why I ask questions while the idea is in my head and not sucking money from the bank. So to be viable and profitable in the concession business you basically need to stick to corn dogs, hot dogs and thing cheap, fast, and easy to pump out? I can understand the issues with BBQ because the price of meat is up right now. So what would you recommend me a strategic way to go about it? Offer only pulled pork and corn dogs or other cheap fast foods?
 
His take was that his food cost had to be under $2, and that food prep and cooking had to be minimized. If you think about the big fair items, things such as corn dogs, funnel cakes, popcorn etc...they all require almost no preparation, almost everything comes in bags or tubs, and require no more than adding water, frying or baking and can be done in minutes. Thus, there is very limited waste and almost no pre-event labor.

Personally, I would favor doing street vending, as the costs are more controllable and limited. And yes, the cost of BBQ has always been higher than most other items, due to the cost of meat, and the fact that most of the plate is meat. You will never compete against hot dogs, pretzels and kettle corn. Back when I did more of these kinds of cooks, I found it was a long day, for small amounts of money (relatively speaking) and with no satisfaction in the end product..."oh joy, my 300th order of grilled beef on sticks..."
 
landarc said:
His take was that his food cost had to be under $2, and that food prep and cooking had to be minimized. If you think about the big fair items, things such as corn dogs, funnel cakes, popcorn etc...they all require almost no preparation, almost everything comes in bags or tubs, and require no more than adding water, frying or baking and can be done in minutes. Thus, there is very limited waste and almost no pre-event labor.

Personally, I would favor doing street vending, as the costs are more controllable and limited. And yes, the cost of BBQ has always been higher than most other items, due to the cost of meat, and the fact that most of the plate is meat. You will never compete against hot dogs, pretzels and kettle corn. Back when I did more of these kinds of cooks, I found it was a long day, for small amounts of money (relatively speaking) and with no satisfaction in the end product..."oh joy, my 300th order of grilled beef on sticks..."
Click to expand...

My original plan was to do street vending then hit the fairs when I was able to and it would be profitable. I live where there are very large ship yards and there is only 2 food trucks working the lunch scene to thousands of workers. I feel it's a virtually untapped market for BBQ from what I am being told by dozens of friends that work there. I figure I could pump out pulled pork sandwiches for the lunch crowd and just do that during the week for lunch. 10-2. Do you think that will be a viable plan? What is the estimated earning potential for street vending. I know it varies but what do you think would be a good rough estimate on earnings.
 
I can't tell you, it is far to variable. What I can tell you, is that if you take your food costs and use a 3.5x multiplier, you can figure out what it will cost to sell your food at an industry standard profit. 3x is typical for Brick and Mortar, the .5x allows for the additional costs for mobile vending. Out here, you are looking at $7 to $8 for a pork sandwich of a decent size (1/4 pound finished product meat). There is nobody that can tell you what a typical or expected earning would be.

From my friends who have or currently run food trucks, I can tell you they work their butts off, and all of them dream of a Brick and Mortar restaurant, so they can slow down and make some real money, according to them.
 
landarc said:
There is nobody that can tell you what a typical or expected earning would be.

From my friends who have or currently run food trucks, I can tell you they work their butts off, and all of them dream of a Brick and Mortar restaurant, so they can slow down and make some real money, according to them.
Click to expand...

I agree with most of what landarc stated. I'll add that profit will vary dramatically from festival to festival and year to year. We did a festival a couple weeks ago and because of the sales in 2013, we were thinking it was our last year. Our profit tripled this year over last. No real reason that we can find.

Like I said earlier in this thread, the money is in food you can hit 5 times.
 
I received several messages regarding GM (gross margin). Most were not calculating correctly. So,

sale price minus cost=gross profit dollars

gross profit dollars divided by sale price=gross margin
 
As a chef I use 3.5 but at a festival you should be doing better than that. My advice is to come up with something not everyone else is doing. Remember at festivals people are looking for things that are easy to eat. Food items on a stick always do well. If you are roadside bbq and foods like that will work well.
 
If you do everything right and all of the stars line up you can make a gross profit of 45% of sales. By the time you take CODB out then you are at 20-30%. Now factor in poor crowd, rain, bad location, fair fees too high and you are at 10-20%. Then pay yourself a wage equal to those working for you and by the time you do that for all of the hours you worked for the event and you will be at 5-10% profit for the business. So if you go do a 3 day festival and you estimate the proper amount of food needed to do the event and gross sales were at$6000 for the weekend then your business will profit $500-$600. Order too little food and you watch $$ walk to the next vending trailer, estimate too much food and you eat us the profit along with your hourly wage and go in the hole. Make no mistake about it you are bot an employee and a business and both need to make profit. If the business does not also make a profit after paying yourself then you have only created yourself a low paying high risk job.
 
We have a vending trailer and do it on the side. We do roadside, events, and catering.


I agree with Butt Rubb.

There are items that do well at fairs and such but tank at the roadside.

Turkey legs for example. They sell like crazy at fairs & we run out. On the roadside, they do not move.

Brats on a stick is another hit at the fairs but roadside is a waste so don't do them.

Our original plan was to do two meats one time and rotate to something new each time we went out. That quickly changed when people hammered out pulled pork. It was and is a hit at the roadside. Now we always have pulled pork and rotate the second meat.
 
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