It’s coming – the season of higher profits and lower temperatures.
When folks ask me if they should stay open during the winter months I always say. “Sure – if you like cold weather.”
You can usually make as much if not more money in the winter as you can in the summer. As a matter of fact, you will probably sell more in November than you did in August because hot food just plain sells better when it’s cold out.
Your competitors may pack it in for the winter, but the customers still need to eat. Let’s do some high level math here…
Same number of customers + half as many hot dog carts = 2 X sales for you. (Yeah, I’m a rocket surgeon.)
This is your opportunity to treat them right, show them what they’ve been missing all summer, and turn them into YOUR customers all year ’round.
Yes, it’s financially worth it to stay open in cold weather.
OK, that’s the good. Now for the bad. Cold weather is…COLD!
How to deal with it.
People always ask what effect the cold will have on their cart, or their meat, or their sodas. They forget the most important thing. Themselves.
Your feet are the first thing to go in cold weather. Standing in one spot slows the circulation and your toesies will be the first to feel it. Get the best snowmobile boots you can afford.
If your feet are freezing, you’re not going to last out there, and you’re sure not going to be as pleasant to your customers as you usually are.
The rest is common sense. Long undies, good coat, hat, and face protection (90 percent of your body heat is lost through your head).
Get some thin gloves and cut the finger tips off the right hand, if you are right handed. Bulky gloves will keep your hands warmer but you’ll drop everything you touch. This is a trade off situation. Keep your hands in your pockets as much as you can. Those chemical pocket warmer thingies are good too.
You can also warm your hands by the air vents on your cart, but don’t use steam. Your gloves will become soaked and useless in under a minute and your fingers will turn into popsicles.
Cart Issues
Most of the time you won’t have to worry about your water lines or tanks freezing – as long as the fire is on, the interior of the cart will stay above freezing. Where you can run into trouble is if you store your cart in an unheated location during the off hours.
If you are storing the cart for an extended period, drain your tanks and blow out your water lines. Simple.
If you are using your cart every day, draining the tanks is a pain. It’s best to have a storage space that stays above freezing but if you don’t, try this trick:
Get a portable drop light with a 100 watt bulb and put it inside your cart as close to the tanks and water lines as possible (without melting anything of course) and drape a blanket over the cart. This should keep the inside of the cart above freezing.
Meat and Soda
What do you call that thing that you you put your meat and soda into? A cooler, right? Well that’s actually a misnomer. You should call it a “thermal insulator” instead. But then people would look at you funny. (Welcome to my world…)
Coolers try their best to maintain the temperature of what ever is inside them. If you put a hot Thanksgiving turkey in a cooler and set it outside in snowbank, that turkey would still be pretty warm three hours later. Of course there are factors that affect how efficiently this works.
The most important factor is the amount of air inside the cooler. The “fuller” you can fill it, the less air you have and the better the cooler will maintain the temperature of it’s contents. So fill that sucker up, or get a smaller one.
Your sodas and dogs shouldn’t freeze as long as they are in a cooler.
Gimme Shelter
If you can get out of the wind it can be downright pleasant, even in January. Let’s look at the options:
Here’s the ultimate ticket! A stand in cart is the ultimate for winter dog slingin’. The trade off of course is price, but this is an investment. If you can vend all year ’round it may be worth it. You’ll need to crunch your own numbers on this one.
Some cart manufacturers offer a tarp system to get you out of the elements. Or you could make your own.
I used a 10′ X 10′ pop up tent with walls when it got cold outside. It was really quite comfortable, especially on sunny days, but next time I’d buy one of those white pop up canopy tents that caterers use – the kind with plastic windows.
We had extra room inside so we set up some folding chairs and our customers had fun eating and chatting in the tent.
It was a great experience – something fun and different that put a smile on their face. Who doesn’t like playing in a tent?
The downside was the time it took to set up and tear down. It added about a half hour total to my day, but it was worth it. Another drawback is lack of visibility. Make sure you have good signage outside so people know you’re in there.
Just Say No
When the weather gets tough, the tough get…
Indoors.
Check out this story from the Hot Dog Cart News archives: Tired of Winter? Move Your Hot Dog Cart Indoors
Laurie Booth has it good!
Need More Info?
If you’d like to find out more about how to start and run your own profitable hot dog cart business, go to www.HotDogBiz101.com. I’ll see you there!
Now It’s Your Turn
OK all you grizzled veterans – time to share your own cold weather doggin’ tips and tricks in the comments below. And let’s stay warm out there!
-Steve
If you must wear gloves go for some Tactical gloves by Rothco. A ultra-thin glove that keeps your hands warm but doesn’t loose all the touch. You can also use flight gloves or other thin shooting glove.
If it’s really cold: http://www.mrheater.com/ProductFamily.aspx?catid=42
Great report Steve!
This is going to be my first winter and I am not quite sure what to expect.
I’ve already had my first few “rainy day shut downs”….
Looking forward to see what November brings!
Hey Steve, I’m planning on staying open for the winter and all 3 of my competitors are also, so thanks for the tips. I plan to add the hand warmers to my chips rack, i just may sell them more than the chips itself.
great tips !!!
Thanks
AJ
Ahh, the beauty of living in Florida!
Steve,
Working Ground Hog Day in Punxsutawney it gets cold……the festivities start a 8:00am on the 1st and continue till 2:00pm on Ground Hog Day. Last year I Put another Propane Tank on my cart and ran My “Big Buddy” Heater ($ 89.00). Not only did it keep me warm, lots of revelers stayed close by. The portability of it made it easy to follow the crowd from barclay Square to Gobblers Knob with no trouble at all. I also work Ski Season and i remain Toasty….
One of the nice things about being down on the Gulf coast is our mild winters. The hottest, most humid days of summer here cut my weekday lunch business in half.
The blessings and opportunities that have come to me since starting my HDC biz in April have been phenomenal! I am the only dog cart entity in this happening college town of 110,000. The university has a contract with a food service monopoly that keeps me from setting up on campus , but the city has asked me to be the food vendor at two weekly city sponsored events that have been very lucrative. On Wednesday and Friday nights, I am set up on the “Strip”, a block away from campus, where 4 popular bars are at the intersection where I sell. Back when I went to school here, all the bars had kitchens, but now, due to Health Dept. hassles, none of them do, and I am the only place the young party goers can get food when they emerge from the clubs. Homecoming is this weekend, and I will probably exceed my Friday night net of $500. I don’t get home til 0300, but it is well worth it!
Have bought a power adaptor for $40, so now my rig is lit up at night with a colorful, bright light display that draws even more attention to us. Life is good on the bayou!!
Russ,
Send me a picture of you when you’re lit.
Your cart, that is… 😉
-Steve
this made me rethink a spring startup date ..why not get a jump on the market?
I was going to start in early spring, but hearing all this I may start this fall instead. If I get a cart that is. I may start building soon though. I’ll keep you informed. 🙂
Now that is some really good information…I guess you really have to think out side the Bun…Yah…:)
I have been successfully peddling my Moto-Espresso Coffee Cart for 2 years now here in Monterey, California. Now I am expanding to my newest endeavor: Moto-Dogs! I now have built my own HDC to pull behind my 3-wheeled, coffee cart.When coffee sales slow at 11am the HDC kicks in. When lunch slows at 2pm, coffee sales start up again! I love it.
A few winters ago ( when I was a rep for someone else selling other stuff ), I wore an over sized rain jacket under my winter jacket and had a portable heater at my feet. I was warm all winter. The rain gear kept the H20 off me and the hot air blowing in to the bottom of that oversized coat acted like an insulated parachute and the heat from that portable heater had a hard time escaping. It was like floating on warm air. It worked fantastically.
Winters here in the northern part of Indiana can get down right cold. With the wind coming down off the lake and the miles of open farm land. The wind can freeze your innards real quick. When I was in the service we use to say. “The chicken has the brain the size of a pea. but it knows when to get out of the bad weather. What are we doing out here?”
The last three weekends in a row have been wet and cold already (I had ice on the Cart in the morning on two of them) I am going in for the winter. Halloween is our last day. I like the the color my toes are now. And I enjoy being able to feel my extremities. See you bright and early next spring.
Steve I want to say thanks for all the help this year. Without you i am not sure we would have done it. I really appreciate you. Someday maybe we can meet and share a hot dog. See you next year.
Roger: I’d like to see some pictures of that Moto-dog!
Russ: Where do you live again? 🙂
I sure could use a better location…
I don’t know if I’ll keep running the cart in the winter yet, but since I am originally from way up in the northern part of Quebec where winter temps avg. in the -20 and below (6 hrs from Montreal), and worked for years outdoors at the ski areas, I’ll throw in one more tip:
DON’T PUT ON THOSE BOOTS UNTIL YOU ARE READY OUTSIDE.
If you’re driving to your location in your toasty car w/ the heat on, don’t wear your boots, and also have the heat set on defrost or anywhere away from your feet. The last thing you want is to get your feet hot and sweaty.
When you’re ready to get outside, change your socks, slip on a pair of silks socks ( http://www.wintersilks.com/search.aspx?searchterm=socks) and then wool socks, and then your boots.
And you’re ready to go! Keeping your feet dry is the most important thing.
I’m in Texas and you wouldn’t think that it would get too cold here but brother, let me tell you! It can get down right bone chilly here deep in the heart of Texas! I asked the local health inspector if I can use a canopy instead of an umbrella and he said that as long as I had an overhead cover to protect the food that it would be fine. I’m going to use one of those canopies with the walls on them and use them to block out the wind. That should be good en0ugh to stay warm, given the fact that I’ll have the burner going as well. Looking forward to getting started soon. Happy Halloween everyone!!
Esteban (Steve)
I was going to start next spring but thanks for the feedback I will start in the fall and get this going.. I’m new to the food business but know it will be a great venture… Especially being your own boss nothing better than that!
Thank you Steve for the motivation