If you read along last week, I put together a high level newsletter of tips and tricks for starting a food pop up. While writing last week’s issue, I quickly realized brevity is not my strong suit (especially when I’m sending voice notes, but that’s a story for another day), and I felt like I left a lot of important details out! Just a reminder that I’m happy to connect with anyone on this journey to elaborate more on these topics or to connect you with someone in my network that might have more experience than me. I’m seeing so many incredible pop ups “pop up” in SF and it’s very cool to see people pursuing their passions and bringing their food to the community.
Last week, I covered things like idea / conception, equipment, menu and pricing. Now, let’s chat about where to pop up, how to market your pop up, helpful tips for day of execution, and what to consider after you’re done.
Where to pop up
There are a few things to consider when you’re searching for pop up locations. Arguably the most important thing is if the kitchen (or lack of kitchen) works for the type of service you’re running. I’m all about making things very easy for yourself the first few pop ups and allowing your focus to be on the food. For example, building an outdoor kitchen can be a very tall order for your first time! You’re lugging around tables, coolers, grills, tents, ice, and power - plus, you’re battling the elements (the smallest amount of wind in the city can be quite the force). It worked out that hot dogs were easy to execute in a variety of spaces (I can cook them on a flat top, on a grill, or even in a toaster oven), but that was by design. Finding a location with a small kitchen that has what you need to get started will be a life saver.
You’ll also want to consider the type of organic following that a location has and if they charge a % fee for popping up. At the end of the day, a location that allows for both parties to benefit from the pop up is the most ideal. Wine bars, breweries, and limited food service locations usually are the best options. When you serve food at a place that already sells food, you are directly cutting into your revenue before you even begin. There are a few locations I’ve popped up at that charge 10-15% of your sales in exchange for sharing patrons and using facilities (dishes, staff, marketing) but this isn’t something extremely common. The margins are so tight on pop ups that I often ask to have this waived the first time in order to make sure it’s warranted - but it’s completely reasonable that a business would consider asking for this. Small business ownership is tough and every little bit matters. I often ask the business how many covers they do on a given night and how they advertise. I also reach out to other pop ups who have gone before me to ask about their experience. Everyone I’ve encountered in the city so far is extremely friendly and happy to help!
A few of my favorite pop up locations are: Dolores Deluxe, Tala Wine Bar, Bar Gemini, Birba, Morningtide Shop and Hammerling Wines. These are all excellent options to host your first pop up and each owner is very accommodating!
How to market your pop up
When I started Chef Hej Hej, I used my personal instagram page and email account. It wasn’t until I had 5 pop ups under my belt that I hired my very talented friend Zanna to do my branding and started my Instagram page and then soon after had a simple website created. In the beginning, you will heavily rely on your personal community and the community of the pop up location to drive attendance to your pop up. Now is not the time to be shy about shouting from the roof tops about what you’re up to! Spam your friends and family (sometimes it takes people multiple instances to understand what you’re sharing before they realize what the content is) via email, texting, a paperless post invite and on social media. Tag people, share, comment. Build a buzz!
Do NOT skip this step. Test your menu items and take pictures. You cannot sell food without showing pictures of food. I can’t tell you how many new pop ups start an Instagram page and I visit the page and can’t find any photos of what they sell. It’s a very common early oversight. You can also recycle old photos and videos of food content so long as it’s somewhat close to what you’re selling. The nature of pop ups is that they can change, so don’t hold onto perfection when it comes to sharing content.
If you have already created an Instagram page, add a quick and witty one liner to your bio section, state your product (and maybe your location), and make it easy to find out where you’ll be popping up. You can also try to share content every 1-2 days that aligns to three pillars of your business - 1) who you are and why you’re doing what you’re doing 2) what you’re selling and why it’s special and 3) why people should buy your food.
Helpful tips for day of execution
Making a plan going into your pop up day is crucial. I use Asana (a free project management tool) to organize everything about my business. I create a Google Doc for each pop up and list contact information, location, date of pop up, food served, food costs, menu, menu pricing, menu quantities, equipment costs, marketing plan, and more. It might seem like overkill, but when you’re working in overdrive bouncing from place to place, you might not have time to slow down and evaluate whether things are working for you or not. There are a few places I truly love popping up at that unfortunately do not generate the revenue targets I need at this phase in my journey, so I have had to move on. I tend to stick to places that have a strong following, allow for service to be 3-4 hours max, do not take a % fee, and offer some sort of assistance for day of set up (a grill, tables, access to water, etc).
I also make a timeline for the week leading up to the pop up, the day before the pop up, and day of the pop up in order to organize my time effectively. Work backwards to create your schedule. For example, if your pop up is at 12 pm, when do you need to leave to account for your commute, when do you need to arrive at certain locations to pick up product (if applicable), and when do you need to wake up in order to get ready for the day, prep, and pack your car. Everything adds up quickly! I rarely assign any prep task less than 30 minutes. While you want to allow yourself the time needed to prep, you also want to consider that you should be moving swiftly to ensure that you’re spending no more time on prep then is necessary. This is important when you calculate your labor in your pop up costs and also to avoid burnout.
A few things to make sure you work through prior to pop up day are: how will you accept payment (cash, square, venmo), roles and responsibilities on site (who does FOH and who is cooking), what materials do you need on site (things like trash bags, paper towels, salt, olive oil, tape, FIRST AID KID, finger condoms, and more), how you handle food allergies / questions and do you have a plan for when things go south (propane runs out, flames won’t start, wifi is down). Lastly, how will you keep track of your menu quantities and how to make sure you don’t sell food that isn’t available (most important when it’s super busy!).
What to consider post pop-up
When I finish a pop up, I fill out a “post pop up report” on the same Google Doc that I’ve created to kick things off. While things are fresh, I record my sales, expenses, and final profit. I jot down notes about the community (for instance, some neighborhoods are low consumers of veggie dogs and some neighborhood go bananas for them), in addition to how much food I had left over and how to adjust prep for the future. I also create a Google Sheet that lists each pop up location, date, menu items, revenue, number of items sold, hours of pop up, hours of prep time, etc. At times, you can find yourself spinning at certain locations when they are not the best fit for you at the end of the day. It’s better to have a handle on this information sooner rather than later so you can continue to optimize what it is you’re looking for! And again, I can’t stress this enough, but do not let your numbers get away from you. You want to iterate time and time again to spend as little as possible while offering a quality product and trying to hit that 70-80% profit margin. Things like printing menus and signs and buying extra supplies can add up and you want to be able to ask yourself if it’s really worth it.
Aside from reviewing your day of operations, it’s also helpful to check in on whether you’ve hit the larger overall goal or target you set out for yourself! If you don’t have a goal, consider creating one. At the start, my goal was to do 1-2 pop ups a month. Now that I’m full time with Hej Hej, I’m looking at 6-8 pop ups a month with certain sales goals that are strategically scheduled so that I can avoid burnout. If something falls out of that criteria, I try to move on (even though it can be difficult to do at times).
I hope this additional information was helpful and got your wheels turning, regardless of where you are in the pop up journey!
Thanks for reading as always,
🍓Amelia