How To Sell Ice Cream at Your Hot Dog Cart

If you have been kicking around the idea of selling ice cream at your location but don’t have room on your hot dog cart, this might be the answer…

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Hi Steve,

I am a former ice cream man looking to sell 6 pushcarts bought from Unique Vending Carts, 4 years ago.  They are all in excellent condition and I would reduce the price accordingly should you be interested in two or more
of them.

Unique Vending Carts 304PC Ice Cream Push Cart with Cold Plates

Capacity: 300-400 novelty ice cream bars
Insulated box w/ polyurethane
Top lid with rubber seal
Handle bar with ring
Aluminum wheels w/ tube
Iron frame with umbrella holder (umbrella included)
10 cold plates

Internal dimensions:

Top: 23″ x 22″ or 60cm x 57cm
Bottom: 27″ x 24″or 70cm x 62cm
Height: 19″ or 49 cm

External dimensions
Width 30″
Length 30″
Height 32″ w.o. handlebar – 37 w/ handlebar

Net Weight: 35kg or 77lbs

Gross Weight: 37kg or 81 lbs

*Available in Blue/White

Thanks for posting this Steve!

-Demetri

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Throw one of these ice cream coolers in the back of the tow vehicle and you’ll be slingin’ ice cream right alongside your hot dog cart!

Or just use it by itself to sell ice cream at car shows, craft shows, festivals, etc.

I’m not selling these, I’m just passing this along. If you want one contact Demetri at djmpatitsas@gmail.com. He is located in Huntington, Pennsylvania.

What’s your favorite premium ice cream treat? Let me know in the comments! Speaking of Premium treats…

-Steve

Click the picture below for a larger version.

 

How to fry french fries on a hot dog cart.

Hey Steve,

Have you ever heard of someone frying french fries at their hot dog cart in a deep fryer? I have a number of people ask if I could do them. What would be the best way of doing this?

Trevor Anderton

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Hey Trevor!

Yes I have. There are several ways that I’ve seen it done and I’m sure some of our readers have more ways to do it.

The first way to fry french fries on a hot dog cart is to purchase an electric deep fryer for your cart. This means having access to a 120 volt electrical source. I suppose you could use deep cycle batteries and an inverter but fryers use a LOT of current and would probably deplete batteries pretty quickly.

If you do have access to electricity you can go with something like this which will cost a little over $100.

A typical deep fryer in this price range has a 5 liter food capacity, 2500 watt immersion element for heating, and indicator lights to inform you when the fryer is plugged in and when the oil is ready for frying.

Some even come with a neat little fry scoop so you can get the fries into those cool fry bags and look super pro doing it.

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Heavier duty units like this one go for about $275.

The main difference is the more robust case which has rounded corners and is made of thicker stainless steel.

The basket is also a bit beefier for longer life.

A nice feature is a thermal overload switch which shuts off the heating element if it gets too hot.

Now let’s talk about gas fired deep fryers. The obvious advantage here is that almost all of us slingers have gas… 😉

Coming in at about $70 is this lightweight, portable propane fryer. It’s sold as a fish fryer for cooking shore lunches which means you can find these at most outdoors stores like Bass Pro.

This one includes a 10 quart aluminum cooking pot, an aluminum frying basket and a steel burner frame with a cast iron burner.

It also includes a gas regulator and a short stem thermometer to maintain proper cooking temperature.

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Some things to consider. First a note on safety. Deep frying anything, whether at home or on a hot dog cart, is very dangerous. I know I’m stating the obvious but please think long and hard about whether this is something you want to mess with.

When you use a deep fryer at home you can stand right there and keep an eye on things. But your cart is a different story. Not only will you be preoccupied with serving dogs, you have people walking all around. Be sure to restrict access to the area around your fryer so no one can get near it.

I do not recommend using the pans on your cart for frying. Oil gets a lot hotter than water and you don’t want all that heat build up inside the firebox. It’s just gets too darn hot. Go with an externally mounted fryer like those in this article. Besides, who wants to tie up a pan that could be used for something else?

Whether you go with gas or electric, be sure your fryer is securely mounted to your cart, either on the top or on a side mount. You don’t want one of these units tipping over. It would be a royal mess when the oil is cold, a serious disaster when it’s hot.

Have a fire extinguisher that is rated for oil fires. Class K fire extinguishers are for fires that involve cooking oils, trans-fats, or fats in cooking appliances like deep fryers.

Class K extinguishers can be identified by this black symbol on the side of the tank.

You’ll also need to think about how you will transport the hot oil when you are done for the day. You don’t want to have to wait an hour for it to cool down.

Not just french fries. Once you are set up for deep frying a whole new world of menu choices becomes available.

You could serve funnel cakes, buffalo wings, chicken strips, dumplings, egg rolls, shrimp rolls, mozzarella cheese sticks, jalapeno poppers, and many other fried foods.

Always check with your health inspector first of course. You will certainly find that you need to comply with some stricter codes but if you can get certified as a mobile kitchen you can really go all out.

Here’s an idea. You could have several different carts, each serving one type of food. Brand each cart as a specialty food cart with custom graphics etc. If you have my E-Z Build Hot Dog Cart Videos and Plans you could build multiple carts very economically. Hmmmm….

Let me know how you do it. OK slingers if any of you are deep frying on your food cart please tell us about it in the comments below. What do you serve? Describe your deep fryer set up and how having the ability to fry stuff has impacted your business. If you email me a picture I’ll even attach it to your comment when I receive it.

Send pictures to:

I can’t wait to hear how you’re doing it…

-Steve

P.S. Want to watch the E-Z Built Videos right now on your computer or mobile device? You can. I’ll even throw in all my other products too if you click here today.

Update: A few weeks ago fellow slinger and Hot Dog Profits Premium member Paul “Chappy” Chapman underwent surgery to correct a heart arrhythmia. Chappy slings hot dogs in Stockton California from his beautiful E-Z Built Hot Dog Cart.

His forced down time was the inspiration for an article about what happens when you can’t sling hot dogs for six weeks.

Since we posted that article I have been inundated with people asking how Paul was doing. I’ll let Chappy tell you in his own words…

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Steve:

Good morning my Friend.  Well I am sure feeling better. 

I still have one more surgery to go in about 1 1/2 to 2 months. I wont be out as long as this first go around.  I sure is great to see your heart beating like it should. 

I am going to try to attach a couple of photos of my first day back at my flea market gig.  My grandson came to help, or I would not have been
able to do it.  I am not at a full 100% yet. 

We did quite well, with a little over $200.00.  A lot of my regulars were surprised that I was back, and attendance was down because it was colder than usual.   I pray that next week will be better.

I want to thank you and all of my slinger friends for your thoughts and prayers, would you pass that along for me.  The Lord has been really good to Katie and I, with all of the support of our daughter and her husband, church family, and all of the slingers across this great country.

Blessings Paul & Katie

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Welcome Back Chappy! You can’t keep a good slinger down for long.

I’m so glad you are doing better my friend!

-Steve

P.S. Click here to see why Chappy is an HDP Premium Member.

Click on the pictures below for a larger version.

Mike Guthrie sent me these pics of his Cushman Hot Dog Cart for sale.

Neat! I don’t have any details so contact Mike for more info at 619-253-2596 or mikeguthrie2012@gmail.com.

Click the picture for a larger image.

Want to be a slinger? School up!

“Success!”, she cried.

She had finally done it – she had achieved success with her hot dog biz.

She folded her umbrella down for the day, packed up her cart, hitched it to the mini van with a satisfying “clank”, checked her safety chains and lights, and climbed behind the wheel.

It felt good to sit down.

The dark green van had been running for 15 minutes with the AC on while she finished her tear down so it was 20 degrees cooler inside. The tinted windows cut the glare and she took off her sunglasses, throwing them in the passenger seat.

She rubbed the bridge of her nose with her left hand and popped the top on a frosty can of Coke with her right.

She took a long drink, breathed a satisfied sigh, put the van in gear and headed for home.

The $287 in cash in her left back pocket made her sit a little crooked in the seat but she didn’t mind.

It was a good kind of uncomfortable.

It hadn’t been easy getting to this point, but it hadn’t been as hard as she thought it would be either.

Her mind drifted back to that winter day when she decided to pursue her dream of starting her own hot dog business.

She had been dreaming of doing this for more than 15 years.

When she announced her plans all of her friends supported her.

Her mother looked at her a little funny.

Her son told her not to do it. Too risky he said – which was really his way of saying that he didn’t think he would ever  have the courage to embark on such an adventure. He had always been the fearful type.

But she started in anyway and never looked back.

Little by little the pieces of her business came together until one day there was nothing left to do.

So on a beautiful sunny day in late March she hitched her cart up and drove down to the location she had staked out those 15 years ago.

As she set up her rig and fired up the burners, butterflies the size of small birds fluttered about in her stomach.

Then – fourteen minutes later…

It happened.

A smiling teenage boy wearing a Red Sox ball cap walked up, scanned her menu, and ordered two hot dogs, a bag of chips, and a soda.

He fished some crumpled bills out of his jeans pocket and handed them to her.

She blinked back the small tears that welled up in her eyes as she placed the hot dogs in the buns with imperceptibly shaking tongs.

In the 81 seconds that it took to serve the boy, she realized that it wasn’t a dream any more.

It was real.

She was so happy. And grateful. And excited. And hopeful.

As the young man walked away with his lunch, she thought about all the years she had waited to do this.

Why had she waited so long?

She turned turned her back to the cart for fear that tears of happiness would come down for real this time.

But she didn’t have that luxury.

Someone else was approaching the cart.

Smiling.

That first day she made less than $60 but it was one of the most wonderful days she had ever had in her life.

She had made money.

Her own money.

Not from an employer.

Not from a company.

She had offered something of her own creation to the world and the world had been happy to pay her for it.

It was official – she was now a business owner.

Fast forward a few months.

She now has a crowd of regulars who follow her around which really means that she has made a hundred new friends.

She is working less and earning a lot more than at any other job she had ever had.

And every day at 1:59 (she always leaves one minute early to remind herself that she is the boss now) she heads for home in her air conditioned mini van and does what ever she feels like doing for the rest of the day.

And her son is proud of her.

So proud.

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What does success mean to you? Let me know in the comments.

-Steve

P.S. If you want to live the dream I’d love to help you. Let me know what I can do for you here.

 

Have you ever been worried about going into the store for last minute supplies and leaving your hot dog cart unattended? Me too. But here’s a product that will give you peace of mind without adding yet another key to your already overloaded key ring.

How cool is this?!!! The BOLT Series of locks lets you set all your truck, trailer and equipment locks to work with one key – your ignition key!

Simply insert the truck’s ignition key into the BOLT lock, turn it once and the lock mechanically learns the key code.

But convenience isn’t their only benefit. BOLT locks are made by STRATTEC, the world’s largest manufacturer of automotive locks and keys, and the main OE lock supplier for Ford, GM and Chrysler. Since BOLT locks use automotive technology and materials, they have the highest corrosion resistance rating on the market, and are nearly impossible to pick.

All BOLT locks feature:

• 6 Plate Tumbler Sidebar prevents picking, bumping
• Automotive grade, weather-resistant shutter
• Larger cylinder makes it more secure

Whether you are a full time hot dogger or a weekend warrior, you can’t beat the convenience of BOLT locks. Why carry all those extra keys?

For more info see their website at BoltLock.com. I’d like to thank HDCN reader Richie for letting me know about this!

-Steve

P.S. I heard from Chappy the other day and he’s recovering nicely. Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers. You folks are the greatest!

Hey Steve,

As we come closer and closer to the Grand Opening of Zay Zay’s Hot Dog Cart, I got an important question. Advertising.

We had talked about selling my bike and using the money towards a full page ad in the Sunday paper. While we realize that the money invested will not turn over a profit right away, the ad would put Zay Zay’s in alot of peoples eyes and in the long run help spread the word that there’s a Hot Dogger in town.

On the other hand, we do have other places the money could be used within Zay Zay’s; product, signs, uniforms, business cards, flyers ect. Thought maybe you and/or some slingers could help us out, maybe use the topic in a newsletter???

Thanks again for all you do and for helping us SO much.

Scooby of Zay Zay’s

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Hey Scoob,

You’re welcome! It’s always fun to watch a new business being born. You are doing a great job on your E-Z Built Hot Dog Cart and I can’t wait to see pics of it when it’s finished. On to your question…

I’m not a big fan of newspaper advertising for many reasons.

First, it’s expensive. When I started King Weenie Hot Dogs we ran an ad in the local paper once a month and to be honest we didn’t see any increase in sales on the weeks which the ad ran.

Second, it’s hard to know if the ad is effective or not. You design what you hope is a catchy ad, pay the paper to run it, then wait to see if your sales go up. But even if sales increase that week, how do you know it was a result of the newspaper ad? Perhaps you had great weather that week or something else happened which influenced your hot dog sales.

One way to see how many of your sales was a result of the ad is to use a coupon in the ad. That way you can track the effectiveness by the number of coupons you receive. We did this at King Weenie and found that we got about four coupons each time we ran the ad. However, this is not conclusive either. How many people saw the ad, did not cut out the coupon, but came to the cart anyway because they saw us in the paper? Hard to tell.

Opportunity Costs. Whenever you spend money in your business your incur what’s known as “opportunity costs”. This is just a fancy schmancy way of saying that if you spend money on one thing, you can’t spend it on something else. So if you spend money on an ad, it costs you the opportunity to spend it on flyers, or uniforms, or other things that might also help the business. You need to weigh the opportunity cost of every dollar you spend.

I would rather spend the money on branding rather than newspaper advertising. Like you said Scooby, uniforms, professional graphics and signage, flyers, business cards are all things your company will need. And unlike advertising, many of these items are not perishable. A newspaper ad ceases to be effective within two to three days after the ad runs.

People don’t save newspapers. But they do save flyers and business cards, and they  pass them around. Of course uniforms and professional signage last a long time, maximizing the time-effectiveness of the money invested.

Here is a better alternative to buying ad space in a newspaper. Contact the editor and tell him about your new business. Odds are he or she would love to run a story on you.

This is what I did when I opened my first hot dog cart and it worked great. It get’s your name out there, introduces you to the community, and it doesn’t cost you a penny. Plus, you get a lot more space than the standard size display ad.

You all know my feelings about internet advertising. That’s where the winners go. The internet is not the future anymore – it’s the present. Facebook is good, but you really need your own website with the ability to build an email list of customers and market to that list.

When you have a list of customer emails you can let them know whenever you have a special, a contest, a new product, etc. Unlike Facebook, everyone has email and they check it multiple times a day. It’s far and away the best method to communicate with your customers, build a relationship with them, and get them to come to your cart whenever you want them to.

If you don’t have a website yet, or you don’t know how to collect and market to your customers using email lists, my team can build you a site that does that on autopilot. You don’t need to know a thing about computers because our websites automatically do the hard part for you. All you have do is type up a message about your special and click a button. Out it goes to everyone on your list so they know to come to your cart the next day for lunch. Easy peasy.

And we can build you a website like this for free because we are subsidized by a sponsor who pays us instead of you having to. Once your site is built, we’ll also teach you how to use it most effectively with our tutorial video hot dog marketing lessons.

Let me know if you want one. Call me at 636-399-2460 and I’ll answer all your questions personally. If I’m on the line with someone else leave a message and I’ll call you back.

-Steve

P.S. If you have any marketing tricks other than websites or Facebook, let us know in the comments!

This has been passed around for years now but it was originally written for us at HotDogProfits.com by Chef J. Gagion, (a.k.a. Pocono Hot Dog).
Merry Christmas slingers and I’ll see you in 2013 – Enjoy!

“Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the streets, were carts upon carts, selling Country smoked meats,

I stopped in Chicago to sample their wares, but when I asked them for ketchup, I got nothing but Stares,

Just Hot Vienna Sausage Loaded with fun, Sport Peppers and Tomato ON A POPPYSEED BUN??

On to Baltimore City that Inner Harbor Town, at J. Gagions Cart I plunked two fifty down,

For his Chesapeake Dog my taste buds were achin, 100% beef with Old Bay and Smoked Bacon,

The slaw that he served was not on the side, but right on the dog, between the buns it did ride.

On to New York to see what they Know, but first, just two stops in the Grand Mountains Pocono,

The Worlds Largest Chili Dog was the Point of their Sign, and the eyes in my stomach were much bigger than mine,

I feasted for hours before I went on my way, for I had Lunch and Dinner and Breakfast the next Day.

Headed East through the Water Gap, with My stomach a fill, We stopped by the Roadside of all places, Buttzville

With Fresh Buttermilk I toasted my My server Big Bonnie, and wolfed down a Classic from the Hot Dogger Named Johnny .

On Dasher and Prancer Lets take off in this rig, we are headed to Broadway in the Apple so big,

Where Hundreds of carts serve no Regrets, just Traditional Weiners with the name of Sabrett,

You can get em with Chile and Onions and Kraut, but I favor the specials the Vendors put out,

Some favor the Chile of Coney Island Fame, Like Nathans Famous, but what’s in a name.

Some Like Mustard and Ketchup and Relish instead, I chose the Latter with Onions of Red.

I head now to the Border, Be in Canada by Night, But not before sampling HOTS of red and white.

MERRY Christmas to all…..and to all a good BITE….