I’ve heard of them, and did a little research a while back- there aren’t any on the PNW as far as I know. Similar idea to me- cooking them fresh. I did know that you could choose your toppings, but didn’t know that they have only one ‘base’ flavor, and a cake dough at that. Huh. I know exactly why they do it - it’s a crazy dance trying to keep yeasted doughs at the right proof level, and trying to train minimum wage workers to get oit right would be a headache (and not to toot my own horn, but the fact I manage to make it work in the middle of a farmers market in all sorts of weather is a feat!).
While this thread is bumped, I’ll give a little update. This coming weekend is my 2nd anniversary of opening the business. I’m making a nice living- last summer I was in 5 local farmer’s markets every week, the other two days were for prep, so I didn’t really have any days off for five or so months. This time of year I’m at 3/week, and one day for prep, giving me plenty of time off to make up for it. I’m currently trying to figure out my schedule for this summer. The biggest decision is whether to stay at my Friday spot in the Pike Place Market. I’d make a ton of money, but logistically, it’d be challenging. Well see. Meanwhile I just keep growing sales. Last summer I didn’t quite meet the goals I’d set for myself in terms of gross sales- the mid-week markets I chose to attend for their proximity to the office/tech hubs took a while to get going and build up a clientele. But then I abandoned one of those and switched to a Friday evening neighborhood thing, and business started to really pick up around all of them at the same time in mid-August. When the season ended, the main Pike Place folks invited me to come down on Fridays, and through most of the fall, I was doing sales in 3 days what I was doing in 5 for the first half of the summer. December took a bit of a dive, and there were some setbacks- the transmission in my '82 Chevy cargo van died so I had to get a new one, and all my yearly permits came due, so that was a knock on my savings, but if been doing so well I had more than enough to cover it. Every week keeps getting busier at this point- I missed my Friday market (had some brake trouble I needed to get fixed), but still made my weekly average at just the Saturday and Sunday markets, which was just insane. Speaking of the Sunday market, they have just (tentatively) started allowing me to serve coffee. I found a tiny local micro-roaster and she’s hooking me up with a whisky-barrel-aged bean to serve, and it is amazing. I’ll have it this Sunday if anyone is coming by before the Seattle meet-up.
Another development - a local co-op grocery chain reached out last September to see if I wanted to teach classes, which I decided to take them up on, despite the fact that I don’t have any teaching experience, or really even any formal learning experience - I didn’t go too cooking school, so I’ve never even been in any sort of cooking class, heh. My first class was a bit of a wreck (went over in time by 40 minutes or so) but every one since then has been great, and every single one has sold out, something the assistants tell me is pretty rare.
I still have never paid for advertising, everything is strictly word-of-mouth. I still change the flavors every week, and am constantly coming up with new fun things. It’s a pretty good life.