Back in Business

February 29, 2008, my husband Skyler and I opened a small barbeque restaurant that we named “Phat Skinny’s BBQ.” “Phat” because he’s fat and “Skinny’s” because his nickname is Skinny . . . because he’s fat.

Skyler has dreamed of owning a restaurant as long as I’ve known him. There were many occasions when he came home from work telling me about “the perfect place for a restaurant” that just happened to be for sale or rent. We even went and looked at a couple of places over the years, but I always ended up saying no. I was never willing to take the risk.

In the summer of 2007, he met a man who custom builds wood smokers. When Skyler found out he could have a Chicago Bears themed smoker, he just had to have one. He had never used a wood smoker before, but he knew he could learn and planned to use it to cook food for concessions at some of the small town festivals we attended growing up. He knew nothing about operating a concession stand.

After using the smoker just a few times, we sold some of our food to some people who ended up really liking it. And, wouldn’t you know it, a small restaurant was available for rent just three miles from our home. I made the mistake of agreeing to look at it with Skyler. We liked what we saw (I don’t know why, the place was a mess!), and the owner made us a good deal. Skyler was unemployed, and it seemed like as good a time as any to take a risk. I got way too excited about how everyone seemed to love our food and thought, why wouldn’t our restaurant be a success? Maybe Skyler’s dreams can really come true.

“Let’s just do it,” I said one morning. “Let’s open a restaurant. What the heck!”

“Are you serious?” Skyler couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

So, we did it, and it didn’t work out. We worked our butts off. We were a slave to the restaurant. It was a nightmare, but do you know what kept us afloat a lot of the time? Our concessions business. The concessions business that was the purpose of purchasing the smoker in the first place. Since we weren’t making enough money at the restaurant, we decided to try our hand at concessions afterall. We had all the food and the facilities to cook for it. We invested in tents, tables, coolers, and other equipment and we gave it a try. That was risky, too. Festivals cost a LOT of money to be in. Typically, a two to three day festival can have an entry fee anywhere from $100 to $650, plus food, labor, and travel expenses.

It was easy money, though. Well, actually, it is very hard work, but food vending at a festival is like taking your product to the customer instead of sitting in a restaurant and waiting for the customer to come to you. When a small town has a festival, people show up. They will come. Since it’s a once a year thing, people are willing to splurge. We almost always make a lot of money in just a short period of time.

We closed Phat Skinny’s BBQ in January 2010. I honestly think our food was loved by a lot of people, but our poor location kept us from continuously getting new customers. Eventually, we ran out of steam. We just couldn’t keep the doors open any longer. We sold everything inside the restaurant at an auction in February, but we decided to keep our festival equipment. If Skyler was unable to get a job, we had a good business to fall back on.

For several months now, our garage has been full of tables, coolers, tents, boxes full of cups and plastic tubs full of supplies. For several months now, my husband has been unemployed. He has delayed getting back into the barbeque business because he has been holding out hope for getting a job, but it hasn’t happened. Finally, when the W.C. Handy Blues and Barbeque Festival (http://www.handyblues.org/) rolled into Henderson, KY for its 20th annual festival, we decided we had better be there for our third appearance in one of the nation’s largest free music festivals.

The festival kicked off Saturday, June 12 with the Taste of Henderson Barbeque. Several local barbeque vendors set up on Main Street to sell their delicious food to festival-goers who came to listen to great blues music. It was Phat Skinny’s first time back in a long time, so we decided to start off slow with a small menu. We sold pulled pork sandwiches, pulled beef sandwiches, bbq nachos, and babyback ribs. It sounds good, but nobody comes to a barbeque festival to eat beef, so we didn’t end up selling very much of it. We should have known that. The only reason we brought beef was because we already had it in our freezer at home. At last year’s Taste of Henderson, we sold a lot of ribs because we were the only vendor selling babybacks. This year, everyone had them. We only sold a few slabs. We did sell pulled pork sandwiches and bbq nachos, but not like we usually do. It was really, really hot. Too hot to eat hot food. Plus, we weren’t allowed to sell any drinks, and our short menu may have made us look undesirable. We came home from the one day event with only enough money to cover the cost of the food we bought for the event, not enough for the labor or to reimburse ourselves for the entry fee.

I put the meat in the freezer, and we searched for a way to get into the coveted 2-day
W.C. Handy Blues Festival finale on Friday, June 18 and Saturday, June 19. The chairman had reserved us a spot, but we had yet to pay the $650 entry fee. It was long past due, but the guy likes us, so he agreed to let us pay the entry fee after the Taste of Henderson. Obviously, that didn’t work out the way we planned. We had to keep the little money we did have to buy food to sell. Plus, we had to pay $150 for liability insurance to even be allowed to participate. The chairman agreed, once again, to help us out. We would pay him the money on Friday night after our first day of sales. To buy the food to sell, we did something we haven’t done before – I went to a check advance store and got a $500 advance on my June 25th paycheck. It cost $89 to do that.

We bought enough food to scrape by on the first day of the Handy Fest. We didn’t buy any more pork because we couldn’t afford to. We used the frozen pork leftover from the Taste of Henderson and our several slabs of leftover ribs. We bought more nacho cheese, tortilla chips, nacho toppings, beans, and decided to add pork burgers and brats to the menu. This weekend, we were also allowed to sell drinks, so our sweet tea and Mrs. Skinny’s Lemon Shake-ups were for sale. They are always a hit and a big money maker.

No risk, no reward. We decided to aim big with a big menu and three employees in addition to Skyler, his brother, and myself. We were the top seller for lunch on Friday, and by early Friday evening, we knew we would soon sell out of pork. Skyler sent me to the store to buy two more cases (about 140 lbs) of pork butt. I bought it and rushed home to prep it and get it back to town and on the smoker ASAP. We sold out of our ribs that day, and our shake-up sales sold us out of a whole case of lemons. We’re back in business!

We went home tired, but feeling excited about a great day. Falling asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow, we were unaware of the strong winds that came through that night with a thunderstorm. We received a phone call at 6:30 A.M. from an employee telling us that our tents blew away! We rushed to town, only to find out tents upside down and mangled in the middle of the street! That’s how it always is for us– one step forward and two steps back.

We managed to bend the tents back together and set them back up looking no worse for the wear. They had to be thrown away after that, though. A $400 loss. What could we do from that point on except get back in the game?

Saturday was extremely hot and sunny. The day was slow, and we were a little worried. When night fell, business picked up. Everybody was coming for the nachos and shake-ups! We sold big and the weekend was a success.

The barbeque concessionaire business if exciting and profitable, but it is also very stressful. It costs so much money to be a food vendor at a festival. If the weather is bad, that might be all it takes to keep us from selling our product. Also, if our tent gets put in a bad location away from the main traffic, that can be disastrous as well. This business is a gamble, but the odds are well in our favor.

July 2nd and 3rd . . . off to Murray, KY for the Freedom Festival (www.tourmurray.com/freedom_fest.html ).