Taking Hej Hej on the road

how I manage traveling pop up logistics

When I first decided to switch my career from tech to food, I started doing a lot of research. I got more acquainted with the San Francisco food scene by way of chefs and restaurant groups. I looked into a variety of culinary school options and staging opportunities. I ordered classic cookbooks, tested recipes, and bought my first set of fancy knives (shoutout to Bernal Cutlery). I reached out to chefs to ask about shadowing or working with them and I ultimately started working weekends as a line cook at the restaurant Octavia.

I also decided to find food pop ups across the Bay, follow them on social media, and try as many as I could while also running mine. I’ll never forget when a pop up I had followed for months, but I still hadn’t been able to try, did a heartfelt post about being utterly burned out and needing to take a break. This person talked about the low profit margin, hard physical labor, inconsistent crowds, and overall just feeling like they needed to prioritize their mental health. I remember being so surprised (and sad I wouldn’t get to taste their food) because the pop up was very popular, the food looked incredible, and the community loved them. I made a mental note to myself to avoid burning out as best I could.

Fast forward 1.5 years later, and I found myself in that same head space. It’s hard to stop doing something that is your main source of income and the best way to connect with the community. I started to dread pop up days and I knew I needed to make a change. If I had a restaurant in mind as my end goal, I would have started looking for investors, visiting commercial spaces, and continued testing a variety of dishes over the past year. But as I’ve shared before, I’m not leaning towards a brick and mortar (right now) and I don’t think I’d love having a full service catering company. What’s a girl to do?

Naturally, the thing that made the most sense was to do pop ups, but take them on the road. Makes sense, right? Same same, but different?

Hear me out. While coordinating a mini Swedish hot dog tour will certainly not be easy, it will a) bring my food to new regions b) allow me to travel c) expose me to different chefs, networks, and restaurants and lastly d) bring back the excitement and inspiration of why I started Hej Hej in the first place. After all, my mission is to put Sweden on the map for a food other than Swedish meatballs - and I don’t think I can accomplish that by staying in one place.

I’ve only done two out of town pop ups. both in Denver with my besties at Lotties Meats (who I met by sliding into their DM’s, by the way!). However, I’m currently planning a small pop up tour across 4-5 cities this Spring, and here’s a little bit more about my approach!

Finding a location

There are two ways I approach finding a pop up location. If you’re partnering with another chef or pop up, you can trust their insight on where to pop up - which is so helpful. It’s also not required, but nice, to consider a city that you’re familiar with and have some boots on the ground. If you are popping up alone, first I’d try to find a spot that already has a pop up culture in place. Also, ask yourself what type of cooking environment you need to be successful. It’s probably a tall order to build an outdoor kitchen when you’re not from the area and flying in by plane!

I am not shy about reaching out to multiple restaurants or wine bars via Instagram - that’s where I usually get the best response rate. However, Instagram buries messages or keeps them behind a business wall, so I’ll also send an email to their info email address. Sometimes, I’ll add the owners on LinkedIn and shoot them a quick message with my connection request. It might seem like overkill, but my goal is to hear back from places I reach out to, whether that’s a yes or a no. I also keep track of everything on a Google Sheet so I can refer back at a later date.

I should also mention that outreach differs greatly from city to city. In SF, for example, I always hear back from restaurants and bars, (almost) no matter their size. To schedule my NY pop up, I had to reach out to a number of personal and professional connections and have them ask their network and so on and so forth. After weeks of trying, I was able to nail one down - it truly took a village! Don’t get discouraged, just be persistent and polite.

Marketing / PR

Even though pop ups from other cities that bring a new style of food to the scene are exciting and (can) be attention grabbing, I think you have to work 2x as hard to make sure you’re successful. This means extra marketing on social media and reaching out to your extended networks in those cities with a digital flyer and information on how to spread the word. It also never hurts to send a message with event details / background on your concept to local food writers or city guide social media accounts. Shoot high, you never know who might pick up your story. I’ll talk about this later, but there isn’t much money to be made with a traveling pop up. However, losing money would be even worse and is a real reality if you don’t drive a crowd.

Supplies + Food Prep + Menu

When it comes to traveling with supplies and considering food prep, it differs from city to city and person to person. However, I’m trying to think of the bare minimum I need to be successful and make sure I bring that with me. For me, that means my hotel pan set up, knife roll with pop up specific tools, apron, consumables (paper boats, Swedish flags, branded deli paper, and mini chocolates), speciality ingredients (fried shallots, Swedish pearled sugar), portable menu frame, 10 bags of Swedish candy and a few Hej Hej hats, plastic gloves, and small first aid kit. I might bring a traveling grocery roller that folds down, but we’ll see if it makes the cut. I will be packing all of this in a separate carry on roller bag and checking the bag.

For food prep, I’m excited to explore other cities because that means I get to explore other local artisan products. I’ll try to find the buns, sausages, and shrimp local to the area. If I don’t have time to prep make ahead items (pickled things, for instance), I’ll just serve store bought. Or I’ll be SO lucky and work with people like Chelsey with Lottie’s Meats who told me “send your recipes on over, and I’ll make your pickled things before you get in!”. Friends are the best.

For your menu, consider trimming it down or designing it with the ingredients you have access to in mind. Once, I flew to LA to do a hot dog tasting and checked that Good Eggs had Bay Shrimp available for delivery the day before I left. For some reason, the day I arrived, it was no longer available and I couldn’t find any Bay Shrimp in the entire city (odd). If I had decided to do my pickle relish mayo hot dog, I would’ve avoided any blunders like that!

Running Service

Make sure you check with the location about how they run service for pop ups ahead of time. Do they take orders with their staff through their POS and cut you a check? Or do you need to bring someone to take orders? Do you need extra hands, and do you have room? Again, don’t be shy to ask the location if they have any leads on people that would want to help out / make a few bucks! I think half of the fun of traveling pop ups is helping each other out and I’ve always found that owners / contacts are more than happy to do so.

Profit and Wrap Up

While local pop ups already present a tough profit margin, you can expect a traveling pop up to barely turn any profit (unless you’re selling out an entire restaurant and have lower expenses for flight and hotel). The reasons to do a traveling pop up are more so for growing your network, increasing exposure, getting to have new experiences, and well - getting to travel! If we break down one of my NY pop ups, for example, if I sell 60 hot dogs (and that’s a high estimate without any dedicated following) at $18.50 with 20% gratuity, I’m looking at $1,320 in hot dog sales. Throw in some Hej Hej hats ($40) and bags of Swedish candy ($15) and maybe I’ll break $1500. My flight alone will be $500, my food costs will be $375, my hotel will be another $350. This all amounts to around $1225. So, $1500 - $1225 = $275 in “profit”. That will quickly be eaten up by Ubers, meals, or additional food costs. However, if you’re running a business and you have a registered LLC, you’re still reporting sales and you can expense / write off everything associated. Brb…going to try to figure out how to sell 90 hot dogs instead of 60 😉.

Content

We all know that social media is a necessary evil to making it in the food business. People want to see your food and they want to see you having fun. I don’t make the rules! Document everything you do and create a reel post pop up to share online - you never know what can get picked up or get more attention. Plus, it’s always fun reliving the memories!

Now, let’s wrap up with the good, the bad, and the ugly for the past couple of weeks 👀

The Good

As I slow down on local pop ups (and make little to no money with my traveling pop ups) I am going to lean more heavily on private cheffing in between for income. I also have no apartment for the month of April and I’m moving in with a friend for the summer, saving so much money on rent. My cheffing agency, The Culinistas, has a great summer placement program in the Hamptons and I submitted a two week availability for the months of June / July / August. I’m thrilled and so grateful that I received my first placement and will be cheffing there in July! Hopefully I get placed in June as well - fingers crossed.

The Bad

I still haven’t slowed down enough to write out my new plan and approach with Hej Hej (moving away from pop ups and expanding in other ways) and time is going by so quickly. Seriously, how is it already April? I have a fun filled month of April that consists of work travel, personal travel, and being temporarily homeless (money savings, wahoo) so I’m hoping to hunker down on computer work during that time.

The Ugly

Taxes are right around the corner and I feel like a fish out of water this year. I usually always do my taxes myself, even with a few W2’s, but this time I hired someone (I think so at least, I haven’t heard from them - haha). Last year, I juggled so many jobs (Zoom, Hej Hej, a restaurant job, and a few part time consulting gigs). Luckily, I have a good chunk of change available in my business checking to pay a large tax bill, but once that’s gone, profit coming in is little to none. It’s definitely not ideal, but I’m working on a pro forma (projected financial statement) to map out the next few months. Once I have those updated numbers, I’ll try to adjust my personal budget to match.

Hope this issue didn’t bore you to hot dog water tears.

Thanks for reading, as always! 🍓

Amelia