Watch and see how things go.  You will always be tweaking your menu. Your customers will tell you what they want and you will change your menu to reflect their tastes. 

It’s been a year (March 2009 was our first day). I cannot tell you how many menus I’ve reprinted.  CURRENTLY…. We are still doing 1 hot dog (2 oz all beef, same brand we started out with), smoked bratwurst (same one we started out with) and are back to the same TN style pulled pork BBQ we started out with (can finally get it out west… yeah!).  We have added 2 more smoked sausages (Hot & Spicy Italian and  Chicken & Apple) added  another bun (for the smoked chicken sausage).  Over the next two weeks, we are adding a beef meatball sandwich (using the chicken sausage bun) with 2 gravies to choose from, a very beefy thick German Style brown gravy and a Sauerbraten gravy.  Both gravies are my own recipes that I have been making for our family for about 30 years. The only condiment change was we added sliced dill pickle chips (for the BBQ) and spicy brown mustard (because of the chicken sausage which is a bit sweet).  And I make really fudgy triple chocolate brownies. We are down to one type of potato chip/crisp… chips/crisps just don’t do that well for us.

This is our menu until we change it… always listening to customers and trying new things that we can do on the cart. We have discovered we can do quite a bit with the cart in it’s current state but we are having to build a new bun steamer so that we can add the meatballs/gravies… requires another steam table so we will use the current bun steamer set up as a food steam table and the bun steamer will be put in a “drawer”.  The meatballs sandwiches are more for events than street vending.  But that may change…

I don’t think you will be getting a lot of tourists from the States.  Maybe a few ex-pat’s and folks who are working who occasionally want a taste of “home”.  The tourists want “real” English food… or at least what they think real English food tastes like.

Too bad about being unable to get the Stagg “Chili No Beans”. At least you have a sample of what American canned chili tastes like.

I see nothing wrong with offering 2 different size dogs, most major burger joints offer more than 1 size burger so why not more than 1 size dog? I offer both 8/1’s and 5/1’s. I figured the bigger dog would appeal to the 20 some year old guys but it actually has been more middle aged women that buy them. I guess in their minds they don’t look so piggish cause it’s only 1 hot dog to fill them up vs 2 regular dogs. I also offer a smoked sausage. I do agree with Billy about a hot sauce, you may want to think about celery salt to. I have it on the cart, not alot ask for it but it is nice to have when they do. If you’re looking to sell to alot of the tourists from the states then people from the Chicago area will want the celery salt. Also New Yorkers will want Sabrett cooked red onion sauce if you can get it. But as I mentioned earlier, you’ll make adjustments once you start getting customer requests.

… I hope you don’t mind if I borrow some of the tricks of the trade you mention in the slide-show, such as extra linings in the coolers…

By all means, borrow away. One day I may be borrowing something you do! That is what this forum is for.  As for lining the lids of the coolers with Reflectix.  That is an “old” Rvers trick (Caravanner to you).  David & I have been tent camping/RVing for over 30 years and living fulltime in an RV (caravan) since 2006.  We know alot of little tricks and tips regarding 12vDC, keeping ice longer and things like that.

Hey DW, I don’t like the idea of two different dog, I would rather see a German or Polish sausage, they will both steam, and hold well. If you do a sausage I would have a good spicy mustard, Kraut will also go with both sausages. I like a 6-1 all round dog, and 4-1 sausage. The condiments look fine, and should cover your needs. You could offer a hot sauce from the btl, Tabasco, Tapatio, or whatever…..Take care……………..BillyB

These things look fine for a starter menu. Once you’ve been up and running for a month or so you’ll find the need to make adjustments like dropping little used condiments or adding items depending on what your customers are asking for.

Everything that you’ve listed looks fine.  The remoulade seems strange to me though. We like remoulade on fish and onion rings here in the USA.

Hi Roadfooders!

I hope you are all well.

It’s good to be back!!!

Finally, I am close to starting up my hot dog cart! Unfortunately I will have missed most of the good weather, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. I will soon order my cart and I hope to start trading in the second week of August.

I’d really appreciate your frank input on a couple of things:

Menu
I am intending to start off with a very simple menu, while I get to grips with the whole thing and then, perhaps, widen it if needs be.

My dogs will be steamed and I’m thinking of offering the following:

Regular dog and bun

Jumbo dog and bun

Condiments:
French’s Mustard
French’s Deli Mustard
Heinz Ketchup
Remoulade
Mayo
Gherkin Relish
Sweet Onion Relish

Chilli, Stagg brand (made by Hormel) with beans  I can’t find it here without.I’m thinking of following Lorna’s (?) advice to jazz it up a bit.
Chopped onion
Crumbled crisps (chips to you guys)
Grated cheddar cheese
Crispy Onions
Coleslaw
Sauerkraut

Crisps
Apples

[font style=”verdana, sa,47,598500,0,110519,91.106.163.18
598499,597904,598433,2010-07-09 10:51:08.557000000,Re:Wisconsin now smoke-free”

…The only person I know of having any success with a boiled/simmered Italian is “ICE CREAM MAN” in CANADA. The hot pepper idea is good, when you look at a hot sauce look for flavor, I think Tabasco is nothing by hot, no flavor…

We simmer our smoked Italian sausage and it is selling pretty well.  Smoked Brats are still selling more.  We like http://www.franksredhot.com/products/hot-sauce Frank’s Original Redhot sauce  Plenty of flavour and only mildly hot. Oddly enough, very few have asked for it here in New Mexico so we quit puytting it on the cart.  Don’t buy a huge bottle of it if you do use it.  The colour goes “off” when exposed to sunlight (does for most hot sauces).  Doesn’t hurt the flavour but looks really bad.

… Do you have a cart? I had thought you had some sort of truck. Your menu sounds inspiring and made my tummy rumble!

We have a home built cart that has been remodeled into a “kitchen”.  http://s570.photobucket.com/albums/ss150/lornaschinske/?start=all Photobucket cart pictures will show you what we started out with in North Carolina (bare minimum cart with umbrella) and the enclosed cart with triple bowl “sinks” and hand wash sink that we are currently running ( but we are still “tweaking” it). Thanks for the comments about the menu. 

… Btw how do you print your menu? How big is it (dimensions)? Do you have to send it to pros to do or can you do it on a PC? How many do you have? Are they attached to your cart?

I use Printmaster 15… The current Printmaster for 2010 is http://www.broderbund.com/c-32-printmaster.aspx Printmaster 2.0 . I print everything on my computers inkjet printer including my business cards (I just changed phones and now have a New Mexico phone number instead of a Tennesse phone number, so new business cards were needed). http://www.vardofoodcarts.webs.com Our website has the menu that we were using 2 weeks ago.  I need to add the smoked Spicy Italian sausage.  Once we build the new bread steamer, I will add the meatball sandwiches, my  homemade German potato salad and the triple chocolate brownies. I have them on my computer but not online. My menu is 1 (8.5X11 inch = 216mmX279mm) sheet of paper (card stock) high with four “postcard” sized pictures on it per section. (I will be adding another full sheet of pictures plus 1 “postcard”.  It eats up the full height of the sneeze guard and will fill up the width (excluding the New Mexico Approval sticker) once the full menu is printed out.  The pictures are really our food.  I use an inexpensive digital camera and crop the photos in Printmaster. I trim the “white” borders off the pages (about 1/2 inch wide = 12.7mm) and tape them together, then I cover the whole thing with 2 inch (50.8mm) wide heavy clear packaging tape (front and back) to make it easier to clean (I will put a price list on the back for our benefit too). Then we tape the menu to the INSIDE of the sneeze guard using the clear packaging tape.

Sorry for so many questions.

If you don’t ask, how will you know??? [8D]

Yes, a cooked/smoked brat, cooked/smoked Kielbasa. There are 100’s of different sausages offered in the USA. The Italian is 100% better fresh, but they do have a few cooked/smoked Italians on the market. The only person I know of having any success with a boiled/simmered Italian is “ICE CREAM MAN” in CANADA. The hot pepper idea is good, when you look at a hot sauce look for flavor, I think Tabasco is nothing by hot, no flavor…………….I think you need to see what sausages are available and then decide, what works, and is available in the USA isn’t always available in the UK……………..the best…………BillyB……P.S if you  have a good sausage, and good mustard with horseradish goes great with it……………..