Remembering our early days in NYC!

Don’t you love going through old photo albums and remembering special moments?  Remember how cute you were on your first day of school?  Or How young you looked on your wedding day?    Well for the Bubbas’, fond memories start in NYC in 2009.

We hit the street festivals in NYC with our pick up truck, mom’s old backyard tent, and 2 weber grills.  We were competing with hundreds of other food vendors, many with much more professional set ups.  At first, it was hard to get people to pay attention to us,  but eventually we won over many fans with the lure of Free Samples.

Free samples were fun.  We’d love to watch people taste, turn and then walk over to the grill and order a stick.  Kids were the best.  Mom or dad would take a sample, the kid would taste it, and go, “Yummy.”  Mom or dad would be so excited, they would come back and order right away.

One time there was a family who grabbed samples as they were walking by.  Mom took one for her little one in the stroller and said, “Want a sample?”  the kid took it, and tasted.  Next thing we heard him yelling, “More mommy, I want MORE samples!!!” We actually had to cut the stick mom bought into little pieces and put toothpicks in his “sample” shishkebob.

Then there was the two little sisters that came by with dad in the morningbefore a rainstorm.  They had a sample and bought a stick.  A few hours later, the family was back.  Of course, we remembered these little beauties.  We exclaimed, “You’re back!”  Dad said he tried to buy a stick from another vendor, but the girls insisted that they return to us. That REALLY made our day.

The fall of 2009 was really rainy. We’d start off the day strong and then the rain would come. If we were lucky, we’d make enough to cover gas and tolls. Or if we were really lucky, the rain would let up a bit and the customers would come back!

We changed locations every week, but we really connected with our customers.  Many followed us on facebook to see where we would be.  And others would tell us that they had been checking other festivals hoping they would find us again.

We liked hearing from our customers about how much they liked our barbikyu and sharing some of our grilling secrets.  We met so many interesting people.  One of the funnest ones was Mr Reed.  He bought some barbikyu and then started talking with us.  All of the sudden, he started singing the National Anthem of the Philippines!  Mom sang with him.  We later learned that he worked in a catering hall and he had learned the song during that time.  Mr. Reed was the only one who sang for us…but we smiled and laughed with many others.

Our NYC days were tough…but we learned a lot in those early experiences.  We learned about ourselves, our customers and how to make our product stand out from the rest.  Most of all we learned the power of the Free Sample.

We look back at the early days in NYC, and we realize how far we have come in such a short time.  We’ve gone from a tent and a few grills, to a successsful food truck in Englishtown, NJ.  What’s next for the Bubbas?  We’ve got plans  Stay tuned!