Late N' Fried

My first business; the highs and lows.

After I left the Air Force in May of 2021, I decided to open a food truck. I wanted a chance to see what it was like to run something for real and not just behind a screen. I saved up 1250$ enough to go to the owner of Miguel’s Tacos and pitch renting his trailer for the summer. His operation was moving into a kitchen and the staff would be occupied. Adding additional staff to manage trailer operations plus logistics would be a nightmare. I take the trailer eliminating the headache and provide a source of revenue on top of that. I did this because my friend had just taken over a hookah bar that sat right at the beginning of the highway exit with two lane traffic, a car sales lot and a high amount of buildings doing defense, research and other professional services in the area. This seemed perfect to me, I had a lunch population and a night population, the perfect storm for sales. I picked out a name and started doing the branding. My primary focus was to bring the girls in and thus their date would pay.

Above is the logo with the idea being to put led lights around the frame to give the gold a draw at night. The twist in the name is that all the food was made fresh and incredibly healthy, it was a play on our consumer, a girl at the hookah bar at 1 in the morning that’s hungry. I thought they would see the lights and then the name. A question would hit their head, what’s a late n’ Fried and I would say you are, what would you like? Everyone laughs and now we talk food.

We partnered with each brewery separately to make menus customized to their consumer. This was the Barrel House. They were a craft brewery really focused on stouts and porters. I had a great time meeting the owner.

I did an all inclusive GTM strategy, partnering with breweries, food blogs and local community. I did this with not only online engagement through Instagram and Facebook but in person through meeting the brewers and usually hanging out for the afternoon before my dinner rush got started. This was a rather effective campaign as I was able to meet roughly 7 brewery owner/operators and book myself for a full month after sales started happening in July.

That’s right I couldn’t make a sale till July even though I had picked up the trailer in late may. You’re asking what happened and to be honest a lack of knowledge of the permit rules. I went to the wrong county for a month, just trying to get a meeting with the lady to schedule the appointment for permitting. We finally talk after 3 weeks and she tells me, I’m applying to the wrong county. I drive over to the right one and the lady has me permitted within 48 hours. Isn’t that just lovely?! That was the first and probably most detrimental mistake.

I like to imagine that if we start sales in early June then turning a profit by early august would have been feasible given the margins. I forgot to account for having to pay myself for operations. My cost of living alone could easily tank the business if I didn’t adjust and honestly I didn’t.

I should have opened for breakfast also and just given out coffee. I struggled to balance outreach for contracts, trying to service the bands or football teams, over the summer with being at the unit for operations. An incredibly tricky job as the hookah bar revenue fell flat. I overestimated how much my customer base was willing to pay at night. They wanted more of a slider version of taco bell than a burger version of waffle house. I wasn’t a great cook at the time. I made sellable food but not I want to buy that food. The distinction makes a drastic difference in ease of sales. I also had a lunch location issue as the trailer was parked in the back instead of the front two parking spaces. Looking back on it, I should have made a deal for the spot and would have most likely made much more during the day. Its amazing what a difference 30 feet can make.

The business failed, Miguel came to pick up the trailer and I spent a weekend cleaning it out. He hired me so I became a better cook and manager. We worked together during his slow season which really gave me a shot at seeing his strategy with a similar circumstance. I had a lot of fun with the crew and it is a winter I look back on fondly. I share the failure because it gave me a chance to see what it was like to run something for real and not just behind a screen. I like to describe running a business as live analysis.

Every decision made has to come from intense research on my subjects, detailed analysis on potential populations, necessary outreach, best conversion factors, new places to go, logistics, supply-chain due to produce, process optimization for faster sales, data engineering and lastly how to insights and make actionable decisions on the fly. Sorry, I’m analyst at heart and don’t want to leave anything learned out.

Overall I’m glad I made the decision, it shaped me as a person and a business analyst.