Hot Dog Cart News

Hot Dog Cart News reader Jamie Hunter emailed me these pictures – and I when I looked at them I just about dropped my mouse.

And yes, it was built from my E-Z Built Hot Dog Cart Plans. Get yours by clicking here.

*Before you go charging off to look at the stunning photos below, I have a truly special (and free) offer for you at the end of this article. Believe me – you just can’t afford to miss out on this. Continue reading “Hot Dog Cart Of The Year? You Tell Me…”

I just got a sad email from one of our brother doggers, Larry Helveston…

Steve, with great reluctance I must sell my cart that I put so much of my life into.  I recently was in the hospital with congestive heart failure, a collapsed right lung and diabetes out of control. I’m doing better but have a ways to go. I won’t be able to sling dogs anymore and run the business. I’m asking $2800.00 for the cart. I’m in Andersonville, Tennessee, which is 20 miles north of Knoxville.  Phone is 865-806-5951. E-mail helveston@comcast.net . I built the cart this year and went into business in July. The cart is still like new. Please find attached pictures.

Thanks,
Larry Helveston

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You’ll remember Larry from an article in Hot Dog Cart News last July. Larry is the former chiropractor who built a highly modified, totally pro quality E-Z Built and used it to start his own business at the local ball fields.

This has to be the deal of the year. If you want this cart you better Continue reading “Super Nice E-Z Built Hot Dog Cart For Sale”

Another Thanksgiving Day is upon us, and with it comes a time to reflect on my many blessings.

I want to say a personal “thank you” to all of you who have helped make HotDogProfits.com and our newsletter Hot Dog Cart News such a success over the years. You have given us much to be thankful for by your support and your contributions to this wonderful community of hot doggers.

We literally couldn’t have done it without you. Your comments and emails are truly inspiring to me and all who read them here.

I have the best readers of any blogger in the blogosphere! I’m serious about that. You people are the nicest, most helpful bunch that I have ever had the opportunity to be involved with.

This is where the cool people hang out. That means you. Continue reading “Our Annual Thanksgiving Sale And A Personal “Thank You!””

I have a prize available for everyone reading this – even if you didn’t enter the contest. Find out what it is at the end of this article!

I had a really hard time choosing the winner of our AdvertisingWrap Theme contest. Just to refresh your memory, we asked you to tell us what your “‘theme” would be if you were going to do a vinyl advertising wrap on a hot dog cart.

The prize is a start up kit consisting of a dog sled, a pair of chip clips, a cash apron, and a pair of serving tongs. That’s a $110 dollar value, folks.

We got 44 entries and they were all super creative and well thought out.

I  liked the “tribute” entries where the wrap would honor first responders and soldiers. They certainly deserve it and I think it would resonate well with customers too. We had quite a few of those.

There were also a lot of Continue reading “We have a winner – And A Prize For Everyone Else!”

Susan Provenzano has a very unique hot dog cart that looks like a fire truck. Not a toy firetruck, but a REALLY REAL looking fire truck. This rig is an attention getter. Susan writes… Here is some info on the Fire truck Hot Dog Cart/Kiosk. It is one of only four ever built two are in Canada and one in Ca.

The cart is just over 10 ft long & 4 ft wide & has a 3ft counter height. It has 2 Beverage Air refrigerator/ freezers, A Breadbox that will hold over 30 packs of 16 ct rolls, Hot & cold running water with a 12 gal fresh water holding tank & 15.5 gal gray tank.

Tons of storage all doors on cart open & have keyed locks. Also has 2 doors with clear glass set up as lighted display cases with shelves. Front windshield drops down were there is a built in Ice Bin and two pull out trays set up for relish & onion pumps. It has a built in lock box safe. All lights on cart work, headlights, tail lights, marker lights, and can be set to flash or not.

Kitchen area rolls away from rest of cart for easy clean up or to roll to commissary, that is also how you get to hot water heater, water pump, sink plumbing, and one of the two electrical panels.

The cart is all electric and can be set up different ways depending on your electrical needs at different locations. The kitchen area can be plugged right in to the truck part of the unit, then the whole thing plugged in to a 30 or 50 amp RV style plug with the 100 ft cord (included) or two separate cords one from kitchen area & one from truck in to common house hold 20 amp plugs using adapters. Or of course if you have a generator.

~CONTEST~

We ran a fun contest when this article first appeared but it’s now over. Congrats to the winner!

-Steve

Hi Steve,

My name is Glen and I ordered your books awhile back and began my trip to a new land. The land of hot dogs, freedom, and happiness owning my very own hot dog cart.

It’s going to be quite the change for me. I’m 37 yrs old and worked my whole life in the Pool and Spa business. Starting out in a wholesale supply warehouse to a Factory Sales Rep. for a major spa manufacturer. I was making great money and traveled all over the world. I was never home. Living in hotels with very bad eating habits. I got sick. Real sick!

I had to quit and Continue reading “Hot Curly Wiener!”

First let me say a big “Thank You!” to all you veterans out there.
We owe you everything.

Sandi Wasteny of Bubbadogz writes:

Hey Steve:

Matt and Sandi again from “Bubbadogz”. First of all thank you for the wonderful post on our question last week as the response was a tremendous help. In addition to that we were able to make so many more contacts to network. So thanks for that!.

Secondly here’s another question. What is considered a “good” yield money or dog wise at a typical location? We have 2 great locations we’re really established at now a few days a week, but in my opinion one spot is “mediocre” at best as we doubled our daily earnings at the second location although we hadn’t been there in about a month.

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First of all, there is no “typical” location. Resist the urge to compare your sales with that of other doggers. It will make you crazy. Trust me, I’ve been there.

What matters is how you answer the following two questions,

1. “Am I generating enough money to make it worth it?”
2. “Am I having fun?”

“Enough money” is a relative term which depends on a multitude of factors. Only you will know how much is “enough”. The “having fun” question is a lot easier to answer 😉

Your job is to maximize the profit that you can generate in your area. If one location is outperforming the other, you have two choices.

1. Ditch the under-performing location.
2. Get (or build) another cart and work both locations concurrently.

BUT…

Don’t do anything based on one day of sales at a spot you haven’t been to in a while. It may be a fluke.

Spend equal time at both locations and compare the results after a month. Keep track of the weather in a log so you know which days were slow because of rain, cold, etc. Compare good weather sales at each location.

That should give you a statistically valid comparison that you can base a decision on.

In any case, it’s a good problem to have!

-Steve

Steve,

Back in your September 23 blog you talked about getting into the haunted house scene.

I sent you an email thanking you for the great idea because after contacting every Halloween gig in the Wilmington NC area, I landed one where these two young men invested more than $500,000.

They had 11,000 square feet of pure terror, with up to 30 to 40 actors and actresses every Thursday to Saturday from 6 pm to 11 am starting October 21st.

Well needless to say, my wife and I made a killing in more ways than we could have dreamed of. We made good money but better than that we got countless contacts that can only help our business grow.

This is our first week away, and man do we miss that party atmosphere especially while making money. Words can not describe what a great time we had.

So here are some pictures that you told me to send when we were done, and again, thank you so much !!!!!!!!!!

Jeff Williams

P.S. They start filming a movie there in mid November.

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Today’s lesson:. Nothing happens until you take action, and that’s exactly what Jeff and his wife did.

Like he said, the profit from the gig is just the tip of the iceberg. The real pay off is the future income which will be generated by the contacts they made. That’s how to leverage your activities.

Jeff, you and your wife are doggin’ like pros – great job!

Let’s give it up for the Williams’ in the comments, and don’t forget to click the Facebook button (upper left) to give Jeff some helpful free publicity!

Click the pictures below for a larger version.

I feel like we’re missing the ship on this one Steve, and want to fix it now as we are becomingly rapidly popular here in the few short months we been dogging!

We need some of your savvy advice. We have 2 pretty good locations which we were originally invited to when we first started last summer. We frequent one more often than the other, and that is the training school for the Paul Mitchell hair salons.

The 2nd is in front of our local waste/recycling facility here which is actually my personal favorite activity wise because it’s on a dead end circle in a large industrial area with Kaiser Aluminum, Honeywell, etc.

We typically start at about 11am and occasionally run to about 3 or so, and an occasional weekend. There have been times when customers roll up around 10:30 or so which is about the time I throw the dogs in.

We’ve been struggling with pinning down our Continue reading “Want To Sell More Hot Dogs? The Key Is Consistency.”