About the Jabberwocky
Awards, books and toasties.
About The Jabberwocky
This is us; Barny and Flic. We bought our green food van, lovingly known as the Beast, in early 2011 and have been making street food ever since. It’s our full time job, our hobby and our chosen specialist subject on Mastermind. In 2015 we added to the industry in the form of a book, Street Food Soliloquy, and a new toastie enthusiast: our son Mortimer.
Barny
Barny has been a restaurant chef, a chemistry teacher and has worked at summer camp in the USA. It’s easy to see how street food was a natural progression from there. He is the Revered Grand Master of Toasties (self-bestowed) and still considers them his favourite food. Current occupations with the Jabberwocky include Owner, Executive Head Toastie Slinger, Maintenance Guy and Bookkeeper.
Barny is the guy behind the twitter. Worth a follow I dare say.
Flic
Flic came down the other Street Food career path, working as a Games Master (actual job title) and in marketing for Some Random Company. Having grown exceedingly bored of selling people things they didn’t want to buy, she moved on to toasties, which everyone loves. She is the Chronicler of the Jabberwocky, Chief Service Officer, Director and Payroll Monkey.
Flic literally wrote the book on street food. She occasionally tweets.
The Beast
The Beast is a Long Wheelbase VW LT31 with an uncanny level of reliability for his age and a contradictory tendency to break down unexpectedly. He contains a full kitchen, perfectly designed for selling toasties and has been consistently awarded a 5-star hygiene rating by Warwick District Council. He is not a big fan of hills.
You can follow the Beast on twitter (of course), although he mostly just tweets what we tell him to.
About
Our
Awards
2016 Awards
Won
Leamington Hospitality Business of the Year 2016 (Details)
We entered this award in 2014 and were finalists, but didn’t take home a trophy on the night. This time we did! It’s a special honour to be recognised in your home town, and the trophy (a replica of the Jehpson Garden railings) has pride of place in our collection.
Nominated
Sandwich Designer of the Year Semi Finalist (Details)
We beat last year’s total by getting 4 different entries through to the Semi Final, even if a place in the final wasn’t to be this year.
Cafe Life Sandwich Challenge Semi Finalist (Details)
Once again we took a sandwich down to the glitzy award ceremony in London. What a night!
2015 Awards
Won
NOEA Caterer of the Year 2015 (Details)
The National Outdoor Events Association are the trade body for the festival industry. They said: “…the judges recognise that this part of the industry has changed dramatically, Jabberwocky bring something new to event catering and really deliver this.”
Best Toasted Sandwich 2015 (Details)
The Cafe Life Awards recognise the best food and drink in the on-trade. They named the Manwich as the best toasted sandwich. We are inclined to agree.
Nominated
Sandwich Designer of the Year Semi Finalist 2015 (Details)
The British Sandwich Association Awards are the crème de la crème of sandwich making goodness. We got close with a version of our curried lamb toastie. Next time.
Best Afternoon Tea 2015
We managed to get our pet project, the sushi afternoon tea, through to the finals at the Cafe Life Awards.
2014 Awards
Nominated
Leamington Business Warm Welcome Award 2014
It was a privilege being able to represent Leamington, even if we didn’t win. Plus the food at the awards ceremony was lovely!
2013 Awards
Won
BBC Midlands Street Food Award 2013
This gave us a free pitch at the BBC Good Food Show, our first ever major event. Good times.
Frequently Asked Questions
We get asked a few things all the time in the van, so in case you were wondering, here are the answers.
What’s your best-selling toastie?
It is, and always will be, the cheese and ham. Sometimes you just can’t mess with a classic. Instead we use amazing local cheddar and organic, rare breed ham to make it possibly the finest cheese and ham toastie you have ever eaten.
Do you have a favourite toastie?
Any toastie only gets on the menu in the first place after rigorous R&D, which means we have to like it. Notwithstanding that, there are a few that stick out as favourites: The Reuben, the Manwich, the Scotch Egg, the strawberry cheesecake and the BBQ chicken, along with many others.
How long have you been going?
We bought the van in Jan 2011 and have been trading since late that year. In July 2013 we finally quit the day jobs and the Jabberwocky has been sustaining us ever since.
Did you convert the van yourselves?
No, we bought it with the hatch and the counters already in, then made it safe and legal from there. Our next project we are building from scratch though. Barny’s getting pretty handy these days!
Do you do brown bread?
Valid question. No, we don’t. However our loaf comes from a little bakery in Wellesbourne and is made specially for us. It’s perfect for toasties, only 4 ingredients long (flour, yeast, water and salt) and delivers the crispiest of toastie exteriors.
What’s your weirdest toastie combo?
The Elvis is peanut butter, maple bacon, honey and banana. We also have a scallop one with cauliflower, black pudding and cheesy béchamel sauce. The lovely thing about toasties is that almost everything works. Pro tip: don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.
Have you ever done Glastonbury?
We have been offered a pitch there, but we turned it down. To make money at Glasto you need to be selling all day, every day, and firing those toasties out of the hatch at speed. We prefer the relaxed atmosphere of the boutique festival any day – plus there are some epic smaller festivals round here.
The Jabberwocky Soliloquy
This is the blog: long-serving first hand account of our adventures and misadventures in street food. It’s a big part of what we do, and it’s what makes us truly the Jabberwocky. The posts below are some of our favourites.
Coronavirus Cancelling Events
A Trader Perspective Coronavirus, or COVID-19, is causing panic worldwide. It's causing a lot of very sensible reactions as well, but the panic is the problem here. As a food and festival trader, we rely on around 12 weeks of trade to float most of the rest of the...
How To Street Food
Welcome to our advanced class on...
Becoming a Parent
As some of you may know, we recently became parents. On purpose. At the time we were heralded as having done a wonderful job; We had managed to bring a car seat with us to the hospital, and were consequently allowed to take Morty home. So far, so good. We were then...
The Jabberwocky Family
It's a terrible title, I grant you that. It sounds like we're all off on a team-building weekend in the Brecon Beacons with trust exercises and raft building. However, we did actually start a family. This is why the blog has been much quieter than usual recently....
The Difference Between Grilled Cheese, Paninis and Toasties
In the grand scheme of things, the difference is negligible. We don't refuse service to those mixed up souls who come to us seeking paninis, and we tell lost Americans looking for answers that a toastie is the same as a grilled cheese, but it's all lies. To the...
Jabberwocky Expansion
Thanks very much for coming everyone. Before I begin, I want to reassure you that I'm not criticizing, I just need to get all the facts on the table so that I know we are doing this efficiently and the Jabberwocky Expansion is running according to plan. First point:...
Not Just a Pretty Van
Being on TV
We have been featured on Weekend Kitchen as one of their festival food choices and we served Simon Rimmer a toastie live on Sunday Brunch. Specifically, we served him the Candy Manwich, which is a glorious filthy mess of a toastie.
Street Food Soliloquy
This is the book we wrote to accompany the all the information on the site about starting a street food business. It’s selling well, has great reviews on Amazon and is full of the equivalent of about three years of blog posts. Plus people tell me it’s quite entertaining, which is nice of them.
Awards
As we keep bringing it up, you might have noticed above that we have won a few awards. We’re very chuffed about this, which is why we keep mentioning it. Multi award winning street food. That’s us. Not just one. Several.
Event Enquiries
The form has all the details we need to provide you with a first quote. We can then talk menu specifics once we have established we’re all happy with the basics.
If you are still in the early stages of your plans and don’t have all the details we can still give you some prices. Please get in touch and we can talk you through the options.
Everything Else
To talk to us about anything else or for other contact options please scoot over to our contact page or email us:
mail@thejabberwocky.co.uk