Fair Food: Fried Kool Aid but No Good Coffee

Last weekend was the first day of the OC Fair in Costa Mesa, CA and boy was it packed!

Not only did it take fifteen minutes or so to find a parking space but there were hundreds of people in line waiting to buy tickets (good thing we already had ours, haha).  At least it was a gorgeous day out so time seemed to go by pretty quick.

Everyone knows the best part of any fair, the food!  They have everything and you can get the majority of it fried ;-) .  Now I am probably a little biased as I work for a coffee company, but the one food/beverage item that missing was good coffee.  I mean there were no coffee places at all, and we walked the whole fair (in fact I didn’t even see a place that sold coffee other than the general food kiosks).  It doesn’t make any sense to me.  Coffee and tea sell a ton, especially if it is good.  It has got to be a matter of time before jumps on this and opens a rockin’ coffee place.

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Comment by MOCAFE™ on July 25, 2011 at 5:58am

Jeremy - what could be better than working a few summers in a fried candy bar stand?

 

As for fair/festival coffee stand, isn't it no different than a drive thru? I saw a coffee/espresso food truck yesterday in a search for used food trucks - it was pretty slick. And I bet in the heat of summer, iced frappes and iced coffees would sell "like hotcakes".

Comment by Jeremy Perrine on July 23, 2011 at 10:07am

I spent quite a few summers working my buddies fried candy bar stand. He was a third generation stand owner. His stand was located in between his grandfathers turkey leg, his mother's pizza, his uncle's corn on the cob, and his cousins orange-aid. Trust me, I pitched the idea to them.

The biggest barrier from what I gathered is the initial investment vs pay off. It takes quite a bit financially to open a single unit. You got the cost of the actual stand, you got the product and staff (staff can get paid a good amount per day plus lodging and meal expense). With coffee generally being a hot beverage, they are concerned they will not be able to sell enough during the hot months (which happens to be the main fair season).

I think it can be done, it'll be tough though.

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