New Stationary Location

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stingray2015

Sun Jul 22, 2018 5:38 pm

We just opened a new location using a 6' x 12'' trailer. I had high hopes because of being in front of a busy street with ample of parking for customers. We have a Home Depot, Target, Chili's, Chik-Fil-A all directly across the street from us. We're now six days in business and we're barely averaging $10 per hour in sales!
We have a Swan and a Southern Snow and we're trying to decide which is better. So far the Swan seems to be much better in quality and easiest to use. So, more than likely the Southern Snow will be going up for sale soon. My question to all of you who have a similar set-up like ours is, how long did it take for you to get going? I was expecting somewhere in the neighborhood of averaging $30-$40 per hour in sales (conservatively). I need some inspiration to help convince me that I didn't pick a dud of a location!
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IceClouds
Posts: 95
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2017 4:05 am

Mon Jul 23, 2018 4:15 am

Hi Stingray,

I guess my main question is do you have a following on social media( i know you have only been open for 6 days), or are you just banking on people seeing you and stopping in? This is my second season and I am also in a 6' x 12' trailer on a semi busy road. The first year we would do about 50 an hour tues-sund 4-8pm. I really concentrated on building a following, grew my social media accounts as much as i could. Now we are into our second year and were doing about 250-300 an hour tues-sun 2-9pm and its not slowing down. As far as machine goes i have never used the southern machine but have used the swan and the snowie block shaver. The swan is by far the best machine and easy for my employees to use.
stingray2015

Mon Jul 23, 2018 4:44 am

Goodness! $250 per hour! We're very new on the social media scene. Our 1st operation we started last year is a Snowie Bus which has greatly improved in the 2nd year. We've just recently combined both FB pages combining both businesses. I've learned that operating out of a trailer is more cumbersome than working the Snowie Bus. Thanks for your imput!
mrjosco

Mon Jul 23, 2018 4:53 am

Do you have multiple machines? How do you handle 100 shaved ice per hour? We average between $25-30/hr, but we occassionally jump to $80+/hour. I have found the max my hut can handle with one worker is about $80 in one hour. To consistently do more than that we would need a second machine/employee.
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IceClouds
Posts: 95
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2017 4:05 am

Mon Jul 23, 2018 6:04 am

I should of stated that we also offer shaved Ice cream or as some people call it shaved sno. We sell this for $6 dollars a dish and the shaved Ice we sell for $3 small $5 Large. I also have a staff of 4 people running it so im not netting $250 an hour.
stingray2015

Mon Jul 23, 2018 7:52 am

Ice Clouds,

Do you have a drive-thru window and a walk-up window? I'm searching for an ideal location for next year where a drive-thru would work. I've noticed all of the busy stationary locations nearby offer a drive-thru.
I also have to work around all of our city/county ordinances that do not allow trailers to operate in a permanent location. Therefore, I'll be shopping for a used portable building or maybe even a Snowie Building.
mrjosco

Mon Jul 23, 2018 9:34 am

IceClouds wrote:I should of stated that we also offer shaved Ice cream or as some people call it shaved sno. We sell this for $6 dollars a dish and the shaved Ice we sell for $3 small $5 Large. I also have a staff of 4 people running it so im not netting $250 an hour.
I have seen another shaved ice company I follow start offering shaved sno. The fact that you can sell it for $6 a pop make me very interested. Do you use the same machine for shaving the 'sno' as you do regular ice blocks? Do you need a special freezer, or does a regular freezer keep it cold enough for "shaving"?

I think I am going to expand to grab a piece of this market. Especially if I don't need any additional equipment!
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IceClouds
Posts: 95
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2017 4:05 am

Mon Jul 23, 2018 10:13 am

I do not have a drive up window at all, though if its raining we have had people just drive up to the trailer! Honestly Shaved Sno is so easy and people are really intrigued by it. We work with Kin at http://www.shavedicedistributors.com he let us come on site and try everything and really put our mind at ease with it. While you can use the swan to shaved the blocks we chose to go with the single serve pucks and bought the machine to do that. Machine brand new is $880 dollars. He has some unique flavors but the people around here prefer the traditional stuff like chocolate and vanilla. We just use a normal freezer to store all the pucks in. So in our trailer i have a chest freezer that hold all of my ice blocks and a standup freezer to hold the shaved sno pucks.
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