pcampbell,
Sure, I will answer any questions you have. I have been helped so much by this forum and the people on it.
I have been in the food business for many years, but not pizza making. I started pizza making in April of this year. My husband and I had a Caramel Popcorn stand at two farmer's markets. We sold many varieties of caramel popcorn, kettle corn, clear toy candy, fudge, brittles, old-fashioned stick candy, cotton candy and different flavors of regular popcorn. We also had a concessions trailer for many years that we went to fairs and festivals selling the caramel popcorn, snow cones, lemonades, and cotton candy. We also had wholesale orders for the clear toy candy. When my husband became very ill, I had to sell the caramel corn stand because that was really a hard job making the caramel corn all day long by hand and it was too much to do by myself. We had mostly worked 6 days a week. My husbands family had been at the market I am at now since 1928. Then we had a food approved shed at home where we popped the corn (before making into the caramel corn at market), made the candy and kettle corn.
I am officially retired now, but still am working at my pizza stand to keep busy and also make extra money. I found a stand for sale that had funnel cakes, lemonades, coffee and hand dipped ice cream. I added items there and sold funnel cakes, all kinds of Mexican Food, hand dipped ice cream, lemonades, smoothies, fried oreos, fried twinkies, and other items. Since that was an outside stand you could only be open from spring until the end of October because people don't shop outside in the winter. I had always wanted to open a Fresh Salsa stand. When a space became available I was approved to sell all kinds of fresh salsas, different types of tortilla chips (which I had shipped in from Arizona), dip mixes, and spices. I thought I could start this stand in the winter and then still make the salsas and have someone run the stand for me while I operated the funnel cake stand in the summer. The salsa stand didn't pay enough money to keep it profitable. Where I live people just aren't into different kinds of salsa. I knew the owner of the market was looking for someone to make fresh dough pizza. I sold my funnel cake stand and changed my salsa stand into a pizza stand. It is inside the market. I really love making pizza, now. I only have a stand that is 8'x13'. It took a lot of planning to get all my equipment into that stand. I bought most of my equipment used on craigslist, and from other people that were going out of business. I had to purchase a deli case, pizza prep refrigerator, mixer, 3 bay sink, hand wash sink, heated merchandisers. pizza oven, prep tables and other things. My pizza oven is a Baker's Pride GP-61 tabletop propane. All the items had to be NSF certified. I do get inspected by the Department of Agriculture. I had to take food safety courses. I make the dough at market on Mondays. If there is any left over, I can freeze it for the next week. I also freeze my sauce until the next week. The market day here is 8:00 am until 9:00 pm. The market get around 5,000 people though it each week. Many are local people that come from different cities and some are tourists. It took a lot of planning and looking for equipment.
If you want to do something similar to this you have to figure in many things. How many people will come day, cost of equipment, cost weekly for food, propane, electric, and ingredients. I really like doing this, but I would need more markets for me to make a whole living on it.
Here are a few pictures. If you have any other questions, just ask and I will answer the best I can.
Norma
Norma
