The #1 Hot Dog Cart "How To" Guide
Hot Cart News reader Howlin’ Hankneeds to sell his highly customized E-Z Built Hot Dog Cart. He’s moving from Alabama to Colorado for health reasons and has decided to build a new E-Z Built once he gets there. I think the price is very fair.
THIS SATURDAY NIGHT SPECIAL HAS EXPIRED.
Well, not actually ON a hot dog cart. That would be a mess.
Hot Dog Cart News regular reader Michael Wood a.k.a. “The Best Looking Hot Dog Man in Georgia”, owner of Dugg’s Doggs writes…
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I thought that I would ask the smart people this question!! I have started doing Nachos on the cart, I was wondering if you or any of your readers that do Nachos could answer a storage question for me. Once you open the 106 oz can of cheese, how long can you store it? What do you do with the cheese left over from one day to the next? Do you reheat the cheese? What is the best Cheese Pump/warmer to buy?
I had a event this weekend and the Nachos did great at $3 per order (that breaks down to about $2.00 profit per order), going to try them this comming weekend and then deside if I am going to invest in a Cheese pump. I don’t plan to do them during the week at my street spot but I will do them at festivals.
Michael S. Wood
Duggs Doggs
“Good!! Good!!”
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Add-ons like nachos have great profit margins. I’m just curious why some folks only want to do them at festivals. A lot of my slingers do them daily and LOVE the extra sales. There are BIG differences between daily location vending and festival vending but nachos lend themselves equally well to either.
I know we have a lot of Nacho-ers in the readership. What say you? How long can you keep an opened can? Do you use pumps? Ladels? What kind of container do you serve them in?
Wanda Swan, you’re my Nacho Queen – can you help Michael (the BLHDMIG) out? And let’s hear it from all the rest of you nacho mommas and daddys in the comments.
-Steve
I received some comments on Free Shirt Friday questioning the effectiveness of selling t-shirts at your hot dog cart. I’m going to turn the whole idea on it’s head in this article.
I think we’re missing the marketing angle here…
The purpose of having t-shirts for your hot dog biz is not to make money by selling them, and it’s not a phone number distribution system either. We should be using t-shirts not as a profit center, not as an old school advertising play, but as a validation tool.
Consider the following fact. No one wants to be the only one doing something.. Our species knows intuitively that there is safety in numbers. If we perceive that many others are taking part in a particular behavior, we feel that it’s OK for us to try it too. This is basic psychology, it’s been tested and proven, and it has a name. It’s called “social proof”.
We can use t-shirts as part of a social proof strategy. If you see two or three people wearing Hot Dog Johnny t-shirts over the course of a week or two, you get the sense that a lot of people must eat at Hot Dog Johnny. It creates a feeling of familiarity and trust. It makes you curious to try their hot dogs. But most importantly, it makes you feel that it won’t be a risk – everyone eats at Hot Dog Johnny.
Here’s where I depart from the “normal” way of doing things (again…). The way that you distribute your shirts has everything to do with the success of this strategy. Display your shirts prominently at your cart – but don’t offer them for sale.
Here’s what to do instead. Give them away. Use the shirts as prizes in your contests. Offer them as rewards in your incentive programs (think punch cards). And obviously wear one when you’re working the cart. But when someone asks how much they are, tell them that they are not for sale.
If a person can’t buy one, they’ll want one even more. And if they’re lucky enough to get one, they’ll wear it a lot because it’s special. Heck, it’s a prize, an award! It gives them the feeling that they’re part of the inner circle and this usually results in them becoming an evangelist for your brand. Again, all this is basic human psychology. We’re hard wired to behave this way. We can’t help ourselves.
The idea is to create a sense of loyalty and exclusivity among your current customers, and to foster social proof, brand awareness, and strong desire among those who haven’t yet sampled your delicious food. This marketing tactic will ascribe the following attributes to your business… Exclusive. Cool. Exciting. Trusted. Prominent. Trendy.
Make your customers feel like they’re part of your tribe and you’ll keep them forever.
-Steve
The Hot Dog Cart News readership is growing at an unbelievable rate. In fact, we’re closing in on 7000 subscribers. And for every subscriber, we have many more folks who stop by to read HDCN without a subscription. Either way, I love it!
One of the great things about a large subscriber base is the sharing that goes on here. Hot Dog Cart News readers are the cream of the crop, always sharing things with each other in the comments and sharing things with me via email. It’s the most dynamic place for slingers on the net bar none – thanks to YOU (you must realize by now that you all seriously ROCK!)
However, with growth comes growing pains. One problem I’m experiencing right now is that I have more topics to write about than days available. As you know, I publish HDCN twice a week and I try to make each article big, meaty, and full of valuable info to help you in your hot dog business.
But I also have a LOT of smaller topics of interest, odds and ends, mentions, etc. Sometimes I get updates to stories and need a place to put them. While these are not large enough subjects for an entire weekday article, they are still important and need to a place to be shared.
That’s why I created Steve’s Saturday Night Special on Hot Dog Cart News. This is the place where I’ll be sharing all the stuff that didn’t make it into the weekday articles. I guess you could think of it as a supplement. I’m not going to do this every Saturday – only when I have some information to share, a special offer, or just feel like messing around and having some fun.
Oh, I wouldn’t name it “Special” unless it really is. So whenever I run an SNS, I’ll also be offering real live specials – very limited time deals on stuff that you need in your dog biz. VERY limited, so don’t mess around. You’ll have to jump on these quick.
I’m going to “kick it off” by sharing another Kickstarter project, this time by metal E-Z Built Hot Dog Cart dude extraordinaire Kevin S. In the time since the guys at Kash Maxwell’s were featured on my newsletter, I have been inundated with Kickstarter projects, too many to include in the weekday articles. Kevin’s is one of the best of the latest bunch. Click here to see his really entertaining video including pictures of his very unique metal E-Z Built cart which you won’t want to miss. Pay close attention while you watch. There will be a quiz (and a prize).
When you’re done watching Kevin’s video click here for Steve’s Saturday Night Special.
-Steve
THIS SATURDAY NIGHT SPECIAL HAS EXPIRED.
Steve,I was looking for your help on one matter. Being as you can reach more doggers than anyone, hopefully this works out.
So the NBA playoffs are about to start, and I have been contacted about setting up my hot dog cart in a beer garden outside of the arena.
I am already across the street from the arena, but this would increase my foot traffic by 10 easily as right now I only get foot traffic directly west of the arena. However the arena personnel are worried that I can not keep up with volume on my cart and would like me to have 2 carts to seal the deal.
This isn’t a slam dunk type of thing, its a 60/40 split as the arena vendors are contracted to that, I am currently negotiating on using a 70/30 split, but haven’t heard anything back. Also we can only sell coke products, and the same dogs the arena uses as they are contracted with those dogs.
Currently in my location with about 2k in foot traffic we are selling between 60 to 120 dogs a night depending on who is playing. But I believe I can easily sell 3 or 4 times that amount in roughly 4 hours in the other location.
If you know of anyone in my area of OKC please have them contact me. I may get another cart and not have to worry about it, but I haven’t pulled the trigger on that, as I don’t want to buy an extra cart for this one particular thing and then have one just sitting around and such. Thanks, Beau
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How about it Hot Dog Cart News readers? Anyone with a hot dog cart in the OKC area that would like to work with Beau at the flippin’ NBA playoffs?!?! Man, oh man – what a cool gig. Let him know by emailing him at: beaumistim@yahoo.com.
Thanks!
-Steve
Mr. T said I was taking the day off today, but that was before I got this awesome news. Besides, I just can’t stay away from my slingers – you folks ROCK. Oh, yeah – I have a new coupon for you too. I pity the fool who misses this!
Tyler Smith is an aspiring slinger from northern Illinois. What I like about Tyler (other than the fact that he was obviously born with entrepreneur blood flowing through his veins) is that Tyler doesn’t do anything half-@$$ed.
From his decision to build his business on a proven foundation that’s been helping doggers get their start since 2008, to the over-the-top effort that went into his video marketing and capital raising plan, Tyler knows how to get things done.
Mr. Smith and his business partner got ahold of me at the end of last month to tell me about the way they are funding their business through Kickstarter. You can find out more about it at the original post which I’ll link to below. I ran their story here on Hot Dog Cart News and received a lot of positive feedback. In fact you all must have believed in Tyler as much as I did because his project just became fully funded 18 days early! Wow!
SPECIAL OFFER. I love success. It gets me pumped. So to celebrate, I’m going to give you the same E-Z Built Hot Dog Cart Package that the boys at Kash Maxwell’s are using in their business, but at a sweet discount. Click here and enter the coupon code KASHMAX in the box at checkout to claim yours. This code also works on the combo package which includes the industry leading Hot Dog Biz 101 training course. This code will expire quickly so you need to put on your entrepreneur pants right now and strike while the iron is hot.
Congratulations Kash Maxwell’s, and thank you HDCN readers for being the best! We really have something special here.
-Steve
P.S. Thanks for making my April Fools Day Gag so much fun. 93 comments so far…
I’ve known about this for a little over a year now, but frankly I wasn’t sure whether to tell you about it or just keep it to myself. But recent events have convinced me to spill the beans, so here goes. I just hope this doesn’t come back to bite me…
About a year ago I was contacted by HCDN reader Matty Zamofo who told me about a guy in Ames, Iowa who was doing low to mid six figures a year with a single hot dog cart (sorry I can’t divulge the actual numbers for legal reasons). I was pretty skeptical, but every few weeks Matty would email me and tell me some new story about how this guy was just KILLING it.
He told me the guy had semi trucks delivering stock to his house. He said he pulled his hot dog cart with a brand new Porsche Cayenne. Stuff like that.
Last July I finally had to see for myself, even though Iowa is not exactly my choice of summer vacation destinations. Don’t get mad at me Iowans – I used to live there. When I got to this guy’s location I was floored. He was set up on a city sidewalk and there were people lined up down the block, people waiting on park benches, people all over the place.
I sat on one of the benches for about an hour, just watching, trying to figure this out. Was it his hot dogs? His signage? His condiments? No, no, and no. Nothing special. Nothing out of the ordinary that I could see.
And then I noticed something strange. About once every few minutes, everyone walking down the street would move their head at the same time, almost imperceptibly. A lot of them immediately checked their wallets or purses and then got in this hot dog guy’s line. I mean the majority of them. It was weird. Weird enough to freak me out a bit.
I actually caught this on video. Watch what happens. Everyone kind of jerks at the same time and takes a little shuffle step toward the cart, even though first guy in line hadn’t even been served yet. The line hadn’t moved but every two and a half minutes these folks lurched forward like zombies, checking their wallets and purses for the fifth or sixth time, desperately making sure they had enough money for the dog.
This happened every 150 seconds on the dot. What in the world was going on here?
Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and a guy in a red and white checkered shirt introduced himself. It was Matty Zamofo. Doctor Matty Zamofo. Turns out Matty is a professor of neuroscience at Iowa State University’s college of Veterinary Medicine.
As Matty explained it to me, the local turkey farmers had been complaining of low weight in their turkey populations and approached Dr. Z about it. After two years of research, his team at ISU developed a transmitter that emits a super high frequency tone on a specific wavelength. Humans can’t hear it, and neither can turkeys, but this frequency stimulates the vagus nerve in warm blooded animals. I had no idea what he was talking about so I asked him to explain it in terms that even I could understand.
The vagus nerve runs from the brain to the stomach and it is very good at detecting blood sugar levels in the body. When it detects low blood sugar, it signals the brain which then triggers stomach pangs. We get hungry, we eat, our blood sugar goes back to normal, and we stop feeling hungry.
Creating hunger on demand. These scientists had discovered how to make any warm blooded animal feel excruciatingly hungry with one pulse of this device. Pretty astonishing stuff. The farmers put one of these tone generators (now known as “The HungerVibe”) in their barns and in three weeks the turkeys had increased their body weight by 36 percent. In other words, this thing worked.
As if waking from a dream, I realized we had reached the front of the line and even though I had eaten just an hour earlier, I was absolutely starving. Then Matty introduced me to the guy behind the cart. It was his brother, Donny.
All of a sudden I understood. These guys were using the HungerVibe to make humans hungry. They had installed it in the side of Donny’s cart.
Matty said that it was completely harmless and that there were no side effects. All I knew was that I had to have a hot dog before I killed someone.
Then the Zamofo brothers made their pitch. They knew I had the ability to reach of thousands of hot doggers with my newsletter. They also knew they had an invention that could change the hot dog vending industry and make all three of us rich if only they could get some exposure. Maybe we could come to some sort of understanding…
But I had ethical problems with it. What about the obesity epidemic? Never mind, I could live with that. However, I wasn’t sure it was right to use this technology to sway the odds so heavily in our favor. No one could resist this thing. In the end it was the mind control aspect of it that made me pull out of the venture.
Until Matty Zamofo made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. It seems that one of my closest readers had sold the Z brothers some pictures of me wearing a pink duct tape cowboy hat while chopping onions with a piece of bread sticking out of my mouth. The shame hit me like a five gallon bucket of sport peppers. Dammit! They had me. And they knew it.
So now I have no choice but to offer you the chance to get a new and improved HungerVibe 3000 to use in your own hot dog business. It’s not cheap, but total market domination carries a pretty stiff price tag. It comes with a money back guarantee and Dr. Z has agreed to provide technical support for one year from the purchase date. It comes with a quick start guide, mounting hardware and a stainless steel speaker grill.
Customers Not Hungry? We Can Fix That.
Introducing the HungerVibe 3000.
Just 4 easy payments of $59.99
2010 Wells Cargo ConcessionTrailer & 2008 Dodge 5.7L Hemi (RAM 1500)
Total Turn Key Operation!
•7×16 ft Wells Cargo concession trailer fully loaded (as a stand alone $27,500) (approved by Durham Health Dept)
•2008 Dodge Truck 5.7L Hemi (long bed) (45k mi)
•Custom Designed Logo (Hot Digitty) w/Signage (10 signs)
•Genrac 15000e watt generator (15000 running watts)
•100lbs. propane tank and regulator /w guage.
•7′ inside height, 78 3/4″ vertical posts located on 16″ centers
•32″ wide pre-framed entry door with screen
•Tempered glass concession window (45″ high x 8ft wide), comes w/ two stationary windows and two vertical slider windows w/screens for serving customers
•One – lift up awning with awning rods to raise and secure awning in upright position
•1/4″ white vinyl interior sidewall and ceiling liner
•Ceiling & Side walls fully insulated
•Under counter 50 amp, 120/240v 16 circuit service panel with 50 amp main breaker, 25′ shoreline power cord and through floor cablemhatch to run your power cord outside
•Six – 20 amp, 120v duplex wall receptacles
•13500 BTU roof mounted air conditioner
•NSF approved stainless steel 3 compartment sink with faucet and drain boards on each side
•Fully enclosed separate stainless steel hand sink and faucet
•25 gallon fresh water tank located under the sink assembly with Heavy duty on demand water pump with on/off wall switch
•6 gallon electric hot water heater located under the sink assembly
•Two (2) 27 gallon waste tanks located under trailer w/ dumb valve for waste removal
•NSF approved 100″ commercial hood system with grease extracting exhaust fan
•NSF approved True, model T-19 stainless steel 19 cu. ft. stand up refrigerator
•5 cu. ft. chest freezer
• Brand new 31” commercial stainless steel steam table
•NSF approved two (2) 40 LB commercial LP fryers with two baskets each
•NSF A approved D commercial LP 2 burner hot plate
•NSF A approved 36″ commercial stainless steel LP flat top griddle
•Brand new BUNN Commercial Coffee maker
•Brand new APW Wyoff counter top food warmer
•Brand new Gold Medal Nacho Chip warmer
•Brand new Hatco Fry/Nugget warmer
• New Hot dog hut Hot dog steamer (less than 1 yr old)
• New Hamilton Beach microwave oven (less than 1 yr old)
•Soap dispenser
Tyler Smith is a customer of mine from Woodstock, Illinois. He writes…
“Steve, as a subscriber to your newsletter and a customer of your “Carts of Cash” book (Hot Dog Biz 101) I wanted to email you to let you know about my project. A friend of mine from high school and I are trying to get a cart up and running this summer in Woodstock, IL. When we started making plans we looked to a website called Kickstarter.com.
We wrote a brief description about our idea and and made a pro video (my business partner is in the film industry,lucky me!), we launched the project 3 days ago and the results have been astonishing! I wanted to share this website with you and all the fellow “doggers” out there. It’s making our dreams come true faster than we could have ever imagined!
If you could please share the fact that there is an outlet like this to support start-up businesses of all types out there I think it might get more people’s wheels turning. Below is a link to our particular project, if you would like to share it with your subscribers that would be wonderful! Backers can submit as much or as little as they would like and we are on the fast track to getting our project going! When we reach our goal we will be ordering your plans to get our cart built and on the streets of our beautiful city.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kashmaxwells/kash-maxwells-hot-dog-cart It just goes to show that people want hot dog carts and a great idea can become a great reality!
-future proprietor “Kash Maxwells Hot Dog Cart”************************** Kickstarter is a very interesting concept. Here is how it works, according to their website…