Bring On Spring.

Week Two on the Road

We had a brilliant 3 days of trading last weekend. North Terrace for the first time, Hindmarsh Square on Saturday and then an awesome spot at Format for their annual Bake Sale. (This edition named “Bake to the Future, which made us very happy, bad puns are our favourite)

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Format is an Art Gallery, Zine shop, music venue and all around amazing space.  Go here to find out more about them Format Goodness

Hopefully we can work with them again, the Format festival is coming up and it would be great to be involved and support them. 

 

 

We met lots of new people over the weekend and are realising what we are doing is appealing to a much wider range of people than we first thought. We get a lot of elderly people come and talk to us, something that surprised us, but I guess the bike reminds them of a time when their were plenty of people selling goods on the streets from market carts and such? Maybe we are just friendly?

Either way it’s good. We are also finding we are getting plenty of people who are just passing by stopping for a burger, rather than just those who are following us on facebook for example. Excellent!

 

 

Facebook has been pretty great for us so far. We have only done 2 weeks of trading and have already got a few hundred ‘likes’ on our page. We have been pleasantly surprised by all of this action! (and still feel super happy on the positive feedback we are getting). Facebook is a pretty amazing tool for reaching people we realise, and as we are changing location so regularly we are going to be relying on it to get our customers to visit us. I’ve got a friend on board to help us set up twitter next week (thanks Eliza) and hopefully that gets a few more people onto us too.

This weekend though the weather has been pretty wet and windy, so we have decided to take on only Sunday trading at Gilles Street Market. (if we are lucky it should be undercover) (also, if we are even luckier Monica will get some vintage clothes shopping in, between selling burgers) For more information about this venue go to...

Gilles Street Market

We're also keen to set up a little bit of information on the bike as we are getting a few questions about the amazing ingredients in our food. We use quinoa and amaranth in our burgers and this is what most people are curious about. (You are on the internet so I’m guessing you can google that one yourself for more information), but when on the road people really want on the spot information about what they are buying. Below is my not-so-fancy photo of our fancy un-cooked quinoa.

We use ‘Olive Green Organics’ brand, Organic Andean Grain Mix for our burgers which contains organically grown Quinoa and organically grown Amaranth. Its grown in Bolivia and we’ve chosen it not only because its organic but because it’s a tri-colour quinoa, (rather than just red or white it’s mixed.) This gives it a fuller flavour and you get the health benefits of the seed in its various forms.

Its just such a good thing for vegetarians to get into, and sooo tasty in our burgers.

So that’s pretty much it for this week. We are very keen for the weather to improve, warmer weather will be a pleasant change on the road for sure.

Gilles Street market should be fun tomorrow, hope we see you there!

Monica (Veggie Velo Support Crew)

P.S We are always excited to find new reasons to love Adelaide. We discovered this amazing business this week through our facebook page. Go have a look, its pretty cool, all done with a cargo bike!

The Kind Cleaner

What a week!

Wow that week went quickly!

Last Saturday saw us embark on our first ever day of trading. We learnt a lot in a very short amount of time and had a really good day. The bike coped very well with the road, and only required a little bit of extra help going up hill. We have thanked him quite a lot already, but its not enough, we have to thank Dan Kouriah once again for being a vegan iron-man and pushing the velo into the city for us. Such a champion! Dan is a bicycle courier in Adelaide, (has been for something like 20 years!), is the International skid champion (seriously), has competed in the international courier championships in Japan, and is generally an amazing guy. We asked him if he wouldn’t mind pushing the vintage cargo bike in for us and after riding it about 20m he said he wanted more of a challenge. So on the veggie velo he went and didn’t give up until we got there.

 The bike is a pretty impressive sight. The looks on peoples’ faces as we rode by was pretty cool. Lots of people pointing, a lot of attention - Awesome! Saturday was so good and left us with a huge feeling of gratitude to everyone for their support and patience. We also found out how the weather is going to impact a lot on our business. It was fairly windy, not extremely, but just enough to blow the burgers along the chopping board if we didn’t hold them down. Outdoor dining is going to provide us with a few little challenges in the future we think. Over all an awesome day with family, friends and passers-by enjoying veggie burgers off the bike for the first time.

We want to make mention of the awesome support from Dan & Danni, Amber, Jess, Steven and the Watts/Simpson/Davis crew who hung around all day keeping us going, and for Nicole for being our very first paying customer. Thank you!!

Then on Sunday, we were happily off to Semaphore to work with Stuart at Sarah’s Sustainable Café. This was great! After getting a beating from the wind on Saturday, we had some shelter under the verandah at Sarah’s and had a much better time making burgers. The grill was hot, the music was on, the customers were cruisey and chilled and we had fun. As animal lovers, we were also pleased with the constant stream of dogs walking by with their companion humans. So great.

Thanks to Mel who brought her Mum and her dog to meet us. Both were a treat! We are super happy with the response we are getting from people, loving the burgers, and lots of interest in the bike.

We notice people see the food, chat to us, and then a few moments later realise all of the kitchen is on a bike “Woah, did you ride that here?”. It’s pretty great. (We didn’t actually ride it to Semaphore, we got a lift, but one day, maybe.) Stuart had also organised for some of his bicycle loving friends to be there. Bruce was one character in particular who really inspired us. Bruce had hand built his long style bicycle and trailer himself in the 80’s. He had with him some photos of the building process and of his friends with their custom bicycles, really great. Can you see how long that load is?

Brilliant!

We see and meet riders all the time who inspire us and remind us that with pedal power a lot can be achieved. So this week brings new adventures for the Veggie Velo. Tomorrow we are trading on North Terrace for the first time. We are obliged by the council to have a certain amount of space around us when we trade, and this being a nice wide boulevard, it should be perfect. Then on Saturday we are back in Hindmarsh square. Maybe a slightly different position, but Im sure you will find us. So a big thank you for the incredible support from everyone so far, and wish us luck on our second week of trading. The weather so far looks great. And come and buy a burger and say hello! We want to see your happy faces! Love your veg!

It's Launching Time!

This Saturday 4 Aug 2012 

Hindmarsh Square, Adelaide 

We are really happy and very excited to finally bring the Veggie Velo to the streets of Adelaide. We will be launching this saturday the 4th of August from 12pm till 5pm on Hindmarsh Square in front of the RAA building. 

Please come and join us for the first ride of the first mobile food vending tricycle of Adelaide. Awesome burgers, salads and the famous vegan banana and chocolate pie on the menu. 

Cash only sales, we are electricity free! 

This is also a rain, hail or shine event, the joys of outdoor dining.

We hope to see you all this Saturday (if you can't be there or miss it, you will have a second chance on Sunday, i will be at Semaphore in front of Sarah's sustainable cafe, from 12pm till late for their SALA opening) 

See you soon. Love your veg!
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