What My First Food Pop-up Taught Me About B2B Sales
An overdue post-mortem of last year's cooking events.
In July of last year, I cooked in a professional kitchen for the first time since a stint at Wendy’s during high school. My cousin Eric and I collaborated on a Vietnamese-American version of Ăn Nhậu, which means “drinking food.” The good folks at Orion Bar generously let us use their kitchen on a Sunday afternoon. Decks of cards were on hand so folks could play Tiến Lên. Bacardi sponsored a pho-inspired cocktail.
As a refresher, this was what we served:
Bánh Mì Cua Trộn Bơ Me | Crab Toast with Tamarind & Shrimp Aioli
Xa Lát Xoong Với Khô Bò | Watercress and Arugula Salad
Hến Xúc Bánh Tráng | Clam Mix with Toasted Rice Crackers
Mì Xào Tỏi Tôm Áp Chảo | Garlic Noodles with Seared Shrimp
Over the course of five hours, we made 112 dishes (plus a few comps) and the bar made 245 drinks. Based on those numbers we estimated about 130 people showed up on a sweltering July afternoon and evening. Most of them were family and friends, but there were a decent number of strangers. Someone even brought their mom, and we got nervous when we found out a Viet auntie would be our customer.
Right from the get go at 4 PM we were slammed. Half of our orders were placed in the first hour of our event. It was non-stop until 7:30 when we finally cleared all the tickets. After that it was pretty quiet, with only 19 dishes made over the course of the next two hours. It was one of those situations where we were drinking at the bar and if someone ordered, we’d pop into the kitchen to make it for them.
Logistically, we could have been better. We had to pause ordering for half an hour to catch up, and basically anyone who showed up between 4:30 - 6:30 (which was most people) had to wait quite awhile. One friend told me she felt like she was in Vietnam, and not just because the A/C was broken. Even though food was slow to come out, people were having a good time sipping on the Bacardi-sponsored cocktails and playing Tiến lên.
(Desserts were outsourced. The bar owners connected us with Brittany, who was just launching her chè concept and she set up in the corner. She sold out in two hours and bounced. Lucky her.)
Our biggest seller was also the biggest bottleneck: garlic noodles with shrimp. My job pretty much just consisted of boiling ramen and frying shrimp on the plancha. (I also toasted bread on said plancha for our crab toast.) When planning we didn’t take into account that I’d have to be stirring the noodles so they wouldn’t stick together. It took me some time to find the optimal flow: drop shrimp on plancha, drop noodles in water and stir, flip shrimp, stir, flip, until the timer beeped two minutes, then toss each portion of noodles in a bowl with a ladle of sauce, put shrimp on the cool side plancha, plate noodles and shrimp, hand over to Eric for garnish. I got the time from fire to pick up down to four minutes per two servings but I was already so underwater by then.
We didn’t sell out of everything. We underestimated how quickly we could churn out each dish, and the long wait certainly put some people off of ordering. I had enough leftover ingredients that I fed about a dozen people in the days after the pop-up with remixed versions of our menu. And that’s why pop-ups are tough to plan. With a normal restaurant you can usually save unsold portions for the next day, but there was no tomorrow here. That said, we still made a really good profit. Margins were good and we didn’t have to pay a kitchen fee. The bar certainly made enough money to make it worth their while.
As stressful as it was at the moment, it was so much fun to just barely pull this off. It was great to see so many friends there, even if in my fugue state I didn’t really remember seeing most of them.
Lessons learned: nail down the workflow before the event opens, plan to make enough dishes based on throughput and not attendance, and don’t look out at the pass to see the mob of people who came for your cooking because that will stress you out.
Also, if you were actually looking for B2B sales tips, I got nothing for you!
Postscript
Four months later, Eric and I had our next event. He had signed on to be the main food vendor for a Vietnamese Night Market, hosted by Viet Salon in collaboration with Welcome to Chinatown. I consulted a bit on the menu but overall just served as a line cook. It made sense because Eric was a lot more passionate about recipe development than I was. And that meant I didn’t have to do any prep.
This was the menu. We only kept one dish from the last event and wanted to optimize for speed.
Bí Chiên Giòn | Crispy Fried Squash Rings
Tempura Delicata Squash Rings with Avocado & Pepper Aioli
Hến Xúc Bánh Phồng Tôm | Clam With Shrimp Chips
Clam Salad, Mắm Ruốc, Mac Khen Peppercorn, Rau Ram, Fried Shrimp Chips
Cừu Lúc Lắc | Shaking Lamb
Marinated Lamb Sirloin, Cherry Tomatoes, Red Peppers, Arugula
We were better prepared this time. A line formed right when we opened at 5 PM and it never let up until 7:30, which was when we completely sold out! Zero leftovers this time! It did suck to turn a lot of people away, but I don’t think we under-provisioned by much. We didn’t have a POS this time so no hard numbers, but we made about 130 dishes in half the time as the last pop-up.
What made this go around so much smoother was that it wasn’t just me and Eric in the kitchen. Aeron was brought on at the last minute to be on deep fryer duty for the squash donuts, so the three of us were each responsible for one dish. Eric took orders, made the crab salad, and ran expo, though expo in this case was more or less “fire until I say stop.” And Diana’s contribution as a floater helped us immensely: dishes, portioning sauces, chopping peppers, it took a load off the rest of us.
My job was to work the shaking lamb. The meat was marinated and I could make two portions at a time. While the lamb was cooking I plopped arugula into paper takeaway boats, then towards the end dropped in some bell pepper and cherry tomatoes and tossed, tossed, tossed. Then garnish with mint. Easy peasy and I pretty quickly entered into a flow state.
This event was a bit scarier because most of the people at this event weren’t people we personally knew. I overheard one skeptical patron asking their friend if the food was fresh or not. (Clearly they did not know me.) They ate next to the pass and I could hear one of them remark “Oh yeah, it tastes fresh.”
Compared to the dinner parties that I throw, these events are far less intimate. I’m just a guy in the back making food, no chance to form a relationship with my guests. But I get to feed a lot more people, and with scale I can make more money. Physically it is tougher to just work the line like that, but mentally it’s much easier. I’m hoping this new year brings more opportunities.
I’ll definitely see ya at the next one! And maybe get to try your food next time too 🥲
praying i can make the next one!