Running A Successful Street Food Business

There is nothing quite like the feeling of making your own money. It’s not the same as just having money, or coming into money, or getting a monthly pay cheque from The Man. The feeling of receiving cold hard cash, which you only have to share with the tax man, is bloody brilliant. It also probably makes me sound like an avaricious, money grubbing toe-rag, but let me explain: The actual funds themselves are more a means to an end. It’s the feeling of having put in the effort and come out with something to show for it is what is making me all buoyant and light at the moment.

To indulge briefly in the money-grubbing, there is a surprising thrill in digging into the money-belt and feeling a dirty great big wodge of cash. There’s a bit of a buzz even in getting an apologetic £20 note from a customer. It may be a pain to make change for, but that £20 won’t leave the hatch again: you have earned yourself a keeper.

That usually unmentionable money (because as a nation we seem terrified to talk about the subject) is proof that we have made people happy with food. It’s proof that the Jabberwocky is well on the way to being a successful street food truck and viable business, and it’s proof that even people who are not really financially motivated occasionally like to pretend they can swim in it before it all goes off to the bank. It’s the successful food van part that actually makes me giddy and pleased with myself as described above. However, the money certainly helps.

Not that it will do us much good, because now that the new tables, hard-fought during a gruelling weekend trip to Ikea, have proven themselves to be not only useful but aesthetically pleasing and very easy to transport, we want more. Still, even if re-investment appears to be coming before actually paying ourselves a wage we are going in the right direction. The glorious, lovely and noble people of Leamington tried and enjoyed our toasties, with only one person expressing sadness that we were not offering the street food menu, and he was still very impressed with his toastie.

We finally had a good pitch, as defined by the laws of the food pitch, and the sun shone for the entire weekend, apparently heralding the end of the summer and the start of the off-season, because I’m sitting here wrapped in a duvet and dressing gown wondering about heating, and I could have sworn it was skirt weather less than 2 days ago.

For us the off-season is still a long way away, as we’re still mostly booked until December, but we have met traders who do enough business in the summer to simply take the winter off entirely, and although that wouldn’t make for quite such an interesting blog during the colder months, I think I can spot the appeal.