So, You Want to Start a Pop Up? Part Deux.
I forgot to add the pain.
Since the first post was popular with the pop up community and I forgot a bunch of stuff, here is the second part. Maybe you all just like commiserating with me. I’m still currently trying to figure out if it’s worth continuing the pop up gig if I’m not planning on a brick and mortar. Am I taking up space? Do people want to continue supporting a pop up that doesn’t transform into something bigger and more permanent? My hope was that I could keep doing what I’ve been doing, save money for my kids’ college tuitions, and have it be sustainable. Just a transient food vendor floating around Atlanta while doing whatever I please. And I wanted that to be enough. But when people keep asking me what my goal is, it makes me feel my goals aren’t good enough, and I need some bigger goal I’m not interested in. And then I feel like shit again.
Why can’t I just provide food not normally found in breweries in Roswell or Sandy Springs, or farmers markets in Buckhead? Where else are customers going to try baos, dumplings or spicy noodles if they don’t make the trek to Buford highway? Why is success measured by whether I open a brick and mortar? Why is my pop up not enough? Why am I not enough?
I don’t know why I let these thoughts cycle through my head. The constant reminder that I am not choosing to climb a ladder is not only annoying but a reminder how I perceive myself is different from how some others perceive me (down at the bottom). I’m not lazy, I’m not unconfident, these are not reasons I choose to stay “at the bottom”. I value the freedom in making my own schedule to spend the precious time on this rock with my family and friends.
I honestly don’t know if anyone else thinks this way. I’ve been content having a small business without any of the overhead and stresses that restaurants deal with. Sure, we have our own problems in the pop up scene, but not compared to the shit restaurants deal with.
Anyway, that’s where I am at the moment. I currently have like 80 substack posts I’m planning to work on (and a dozen drafts I go back and forth writing until they’re done - starting to wonder where my kid got ADHD from) because if I’m not cooking I need to do something productive. It’s been therapeutic and like I said previously, cheaper than actual therapy. I wish I had an editor to make me sound grammatically correct and intelligent. Enjoy.
Pain and Exhaustion.
This doesn’t sound really glamorous, because it isn’t. I start standard pop up prep two weeks in advance. It takes me 10+ days to meticulously fold dumplings - around 2000+ each dumpling drop/pop up - not counting the 600 additional dumplings I sell hot. The folding isn’t what hurts my hands, surprisingly - it’s the kneading of the dough. I use a pasta attachment to make my wrappers, but still have to roll them out thinner by hand, which is why I’m not able to confidently hold a hot mug of coffee anymore.
A couple days before the pop up I make my other dishes - noodles, rice, sauces, chili oil. All my sauces are made from scratch, if I could brew my own soy sauce I would. You wouldn’t think sauces would take hours, but it’s a painstaking effort just like everything else.
Now comes the fun part - I barely/don’t sleep. I mean, last year I slowed down and forced myself to be reasonable, get my 7-8 hours so I’m not a zombie when I see my customers. But when I’m popping up at a Farmers market at 8am (unpacked and ready to go even earlier) I wake up at 3am. It’s easy to say I can go to bed early and set an alarm, but things don’t work that way. I have a family at home. I will go to bed at midnight after cleaning, making dinner, helping my kids then lay in bed staring at the ceiling, panicked I won’t wake up in time, therefore not getting any sleep. This happens maybe 90% of the time.
So, after staring at the ceiling for hours I get out of bed and get to the kitchen to prep and also pack my car. I have to pack 4 6’ tables, a tent, cooking equipment, hotboxes, coolers, rice warmers, and everything else that prevents me from seeing traffic while I drive to the pop up. The loading, unloading, re-loading then re-unloading is what does it to me. Some of this stuff is heavy and needs two people to carry. I’m proud of my two kids and I doing this ourselves (I always say “Ha! We don’t need any men here”). My kids are now the same size as me, one can beat me in arm wrestling, we’ve got this - but it doesn’t make it any less exhausting.
So now we actually get to the pop up, the part that everyone sees. If you’ve ever been to one of my pop ups, we are usually in the weeds for 1-2 hours straight, then sold out. No matter how much food I bring. Although the past few months were slow - I’m talking about the general pop up experience from the past 6 years. I prep an average of 120 items each time. Imagine putting out 120 items with one person cooking, in 1-2 hours. Newbie Candy circa 2019 never could’ve done that. I still don’t know how we do it now, but we do. Those 1-2 hours are a blur, I basically cook until all the food runs out, while my kids keep count of our inventory until eventually calling it and flipping our chalkboard sign to the side that says “SOLD OUT” with sad emoji.
After loading up, then unloading, I’m not done yet because I have to clean everything. Because I am also my own dishwasher. Scrubbing hotel pans, cookware, washing tablecloths, aprons, the inside of my car if something garlicky spills all over the floor and makes it smell the next three years, after all of that I will finally get to sit down. But once I do, I realize I can’t stand up again, because my body isn’t working the way it should. My muscles are on fire, joints hurt, and - is that plantar fasciitis acting up again? Did I actually sprain my wrist from lifting the cambro or will that go away? My head is pounding from dehydration (amplified x10 if it’s summer) and I’ve also nearly black out from heat exhaustion. And that eye twitch? Won’t go away for another 6 months.
I think I can finally sleep it off now after popping a couple ibuprofen, but my adrenaline will keep me staring at the ceiling, heart pounding, body on fire and maybe the exhaustion will lessen if I just cry myself to sleep while thinking of a man telling me that what I do must be so easy because all I do is sell food and people just show up, or how a woman yelled at me because I ran out of vegan food, and now I’m not sad but too angry to sleep again.
A lot of us work until utter exhaustion and people don’t see the behind the scenes stuff. Maybe your prep only takes a few days, I know mine only takes 2-3 days if I don’t do dumplings. I regret my life choices every few months, then repeat.
Are you an introvert? Add some extra exhaustion.
Are you a people person? I’m not. It’s not that I don’t like any of you, I’m easily overwhelmed by many people at once, and it’s hard to carry a good one-on-one conversation in the middle of chaos while I’m trying to cook. Some find me very aloof, uncomfortable, or even rude to talk to, but that’s because I’m in the zone and trying to focus. I swear I’m grateful. But you know how they talk about that one person who lights up any room they walk in, or how they’ve never met a stranger? That doesn’t describe me. My online persona is different than my actual persona, not because it’s fake, but this is where I’m comfortable.
Carrying a casual conversation while trying to remember my cooking times has never come easy to me. I see other vendors do this effortlessly, while remembering names and details of the person they are talking to. I have trouble remembering faces, names, details. I seem, essentially, to be a jerk. And that jerk decided to go into the service industry facing hundreds of people a day, because it was worth doing if I could share my food with all of you.
Don’t worry, I am fully self-aware of my awkwardness, as I go home and stare at the ceiling evaluating every awkward interaction I had earlier that day, worried I made someone else as uncomfortable as I was. This is not a problem with any of you dear customers, this is a me problem.
So along with the physical exhaustion, there is also the mental exhaustion from being socially awkward. But I seemed to have done alright despite my awkwardness, and if you are introverted, it’s possible for you too.
You will eat like a raccoon.
You would think that I eat all this delicious food I serve, but I actually get Mcdonald’s and shove it down my gullet right before service. No joke. There is a McDonalds 5 minutes from my house. Although, I will be boycotting McDonalds for all the rats they had at their establishments recently (by rats I mean snitches). I actually don’t eat my own food anymore, and I haven’t for years. Every once in a while I will have some dumplings, or chow down on some cold spicy noodles leftover from a pop up. But if you made thousands of dumplings a day, would you be tired of them? Don’t answer that, you’ll say you won’t be…..but I know you will.
I did pick up some questionable fried chicken and gizzards at a gas station on the way to a farmer’s market once. Or sometimes all I eat the entire day is a bag of pretzels and wash it down with a beer.
A Love Letter to my Customers.
I’ve been meaning to write a love letter to all my customers. I don’t give them enough credit and when I’m feeling at my lowest, the negativity is all I focus on. For every customer who yells at me because they didn’t read the menu, or doesn’t understand that dark meat is in fact dark and not undercooked, or asks me to wait 8 hours for them because they’re late to pick up, the other 99 of my customers are pretty awesome.
While restaurants in general have a variety of patrons coming in with unreasonable demands and threats of 1 star yelp reviews, I don’t think this is the norm with pop up customers. Like I said in my previous post, people tend to support the person and the dream. That’s why you see these long lines at most pop ups, with some willing to wait an hour or two, knowing there’s a chance it will sell out before they get to the front.
I’ve had customers come congratulate me after selling out, whether they managed to get food or not. They know that’s the nature of pop ups, since the fixed quantity we bring may not be enough (even with our best estimates, other factors could be at play). Although I feel horrible I couldn’t feed everyone a lot of times, your gratitude and grace isn’t taken for granted, and I know some of you may never try coming back (I can’t expect people to be patient forever).
I’ve had customers bring me gifts. We don’t know each other, but you felt compelled to be a good person when you didn’t have to be, and that makes my day. There is so much empathy, understanding, and kindness from pop up patrons, you’re the reason I kept going for all these years.
My parents and relatives have asked me if anyone’s ever gotten angry at me for my prices or long waits. Yes, but as much as they’d think. If I wanted to be hated on, I’d open a restaurant in Buckhead or Alpharetta.
So thank you for all your patience, understanding, words of support, gifts, and reaching out on DMs just to tell me how much you appreciate what I’ve been doing. It honestly makes a difference and gives me hope in humanity.
Community over Competition.
We all (ok, not all, but most) try to follow this idealistic mantra in the food industry. My villain origin story started because I was blacklisted from certain opportunities by people who thought there was only enough room for a select few at the top. I took that feeling of rejection along the ride with me, and rather than perpetuating it, I tried to help the community as much as possible, because I didn’t want anyone to feel as bad as I felt.
Starting this business with no prior industry experience, trying to fight for a seat at the table, was hard. It was like high school all over again, with the mean girls at the cool table, telling me that I can’t sit with them. It’s why I’ve had “non-award winning pop up chef” in my Instagram bio this whole time. That shit was real! I didn’t make that up, that’s what I was called, and that’s what I’m still proud of. I still managed to be somewhat successful here - although maybe not on most people’s terms.
What pulls me out of that rut of feeling like a worthless loser? Community. I was given a chance by amazing vendors and restaurant owners who walked me through the business. If I had a question, like how to make my menu, how to determine my quantities, how to price it, how to set up my station, all the things I’m a bit embarrassed to ask, they knew how to answer it. I had another vendor donate all their equipment to help me get started. I had friends shout my name when I wasn’t in the room. And because of them, I will continue to pay it forward.
We try to create a sense of community even if we’re too busy to physically go out and support each other. If vendors DM me to ask a personal question, I’m pretty transparent and share anything useful to help them succeed. I want everyone at the top, because there’s room for all of us. I know in the Asian food community, some people think there’s only space for one, or a select few, but that’s if you’re playing the game within the system, where there’s a majority of European or American cuisines and one of every other “ethnic’ cuisine (I say ethnic sarcastically).
We should all help each other climb up while challenging each other. Don’t be an asshole, don’t talk shit about other vendors (unless you have the balls to say it to their face), we’ve graduated from high school a while ago.
Back in the old days, we used to be friends with our neighbors, and they would get our mail for us, wheel our garbage cans back in, or tell us our house was on fire if we were on vacation. If your neighbor was injured, can’t mow their lawn and needs help, don’t go calling the cops on them, help them*. That’s how we should be treating each other, not snitching to the HOA because they painted shutters the wrong shade of gray*.
*those were all examples from my Neighborhood Facebook Group
Call me naïve or overly idealistic. Maybe “this isn’t the real world” and I’m “living in a bubble”. But that bubble is my community. The real world is pretty nasty now, why not create a community full of support and kindness while everyone outside of it can fight and backstab for scraps of respect within a system that will always oppress them? I’m getting too deep into something I’m not ready to unpack yet and will save that for another time.
Work-Life Balance.
I touched on this in the last post about losing all your friends. It’s a constant struggle to achieve a healthy work-life balance when you run your own business, or when you cook for a living. Especially if you’re also a mom juggling school pickups, taking care of your family at home, making appointments, managing finances (at home and for business) and other things that aren’t equally divided with your spouse as you would like.
The reason it takes me 10+ days to fold 2600+ dumplings rather than a couple days is 1 - I do this myself and 2 - I have to schedule kitchen time within the few hours between school drop off and pickup. I drop my kid off at 8:00am, I work at the kitchen from 9-2pm, then pickup is at 3:30pm. In 4-5 hours at the kitchen, I have to prep my filling and dough, then fold them. Take into account it’s 100-300 dumplings per hour once I get into a rhythm. This schedule is not conducive to a steady consistent flow, there is a lot of stop and go. Then repeat until finished.
Do I have time to take care of my own health? I try but it’s never enough time. I go to the gym every morning between dropping my kid off and kitchen prep. Most of the time, I sit in my car before heading to the gym because it’s the only alone time I get, which eats into my workout time. So I have to decide between my mental and physical health. Because I can’t have both jk.
When my kids were younger, and my husband traveled for business, this schedule was incredibly tough if one of my kids got sick. I lost money and time at the kitchen, nor could I make my own deadlines. I truly respect and commend single parents as it is a struggle I only get a glimpse of at my most difficult times.
What about a social life? That is precious time away from my kids and work, and if I ever see friends face to face, it has to be planned. I rarely am able to play it by ear, because I have to work around a very tight schedule. If someone is flaky, or constantly late while I make an effort to see you, I can’t/won’t see you as much anymore. Which goes back to what I said in my previous post of losing a lot of friends. I bend over backwards to spend a few hours of quality time with people I care about, and hope they make the effort to do the same with respect to my time.
My house is somewhat clean but could be better. On my days off (Mondays) I do a cleaning along with admin work for my business, and get groceries for home and work. My husband does the laundry, and we all do our part in folding it. My kids have to clean up after every meal, and unload the dishwasher.
In summary, the deck is stacked against women (moms specifically). Even with everyone doing their part, the mental load of remembering everything concerning the housework, groceries, kids schedules, social life, and business is too much for one person to do, and the only thing you can do is just try, and try without burning out. Which is currently what I am right now. If you’re in a relationship seeing your spouse struggle, help with the mental load. They are forced to delegate but rather not, and just want it done. Get the groceries and cook, do the laundry if there’s dirty clothes, learn where all the fucking dishes go in the cabinets, and maybe we can all achieve a healthy work-life balance in utopia one day. Don’t wait til your spouse gets home from hours of food prep to ask what they’re doing for dinner.
Autonomy.
Why, after everything I wrote up above, would I keep trying to work through all this? It sounds like it sucks. Lack of a work-life balance, pain and exhaustion, your friends all hate you.
It’s about having autonomy. When everything else in life seems to be working against you, or your life seems chaotic, things are out of your control, having your own business means you get to call the shots. You also have no one to answer to, no boss that bases your productivity on how long your butt was in the seat. No zoom meetings to stay awake for. No cubicle prison to sit in eating a sad desk lunch. No mouse to order from Amazon that moves around so it looks like you’re working. You are free to succeed or fuck up on your own terms.
I worked in an office for years. No matter how hard I worked, it wasn’t valued as much as it should’ve been because of my seniority and gender. Being told I was only there because they needed more Asian females at the company made it feel pointless to try any harder than I already did. On top of that, I also wasn’t passionate about my job. Climbing up a ladder just to prove myself in something I didn’t care about would’ve been idiotic.
If you’re passionate about something, and hate working for someone else, take that risk. With all the new responsibilities and fear comes freedom. It’s as simple as that.