Crazy & Co.

Happy French Fries Day

14 July 2023

The second Friday (or Frie Day) in July is national French Fries Day. Where? you might ask, good old America, where no doubt they think they invented them despite the name.

Introduced into Ireland in 1589 by Sir Walter Raleigh, the humble potato spread to become a staple crop in many lands. Hopefully in the great cosmic distribution of Karma, this may alleviate the deaths caused by his other introduction ‘tobacco’. Perhaps we might have been better smoking potatoes and eating tobacco!

French Fries Aren’t Just Potatoes

Fries can also be made with ;

Sweet potatoes
Jicama Fries
Parsnips sliver fries
Baked carrot fries
Parmesan-Crusted Asparagus fries

so even without Sir Walter we would still have had fries of some sort.

The good ole Americans consume 4.5 Billion pounds of fries, that works out at about 30 lb each. That’s a helluva lot of fries per person.

Whichever way you like your French fries, add some condiments and there is something for everyone.

Happy Fries Day!

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Fun Story

World Cups, Boxing Matches and Fairgrounds

19 June 2023

Any England fan (football) will tell you of the years of hurt, failed dreams and fantasies of world cups that have come to naught. We seem to get so close, then lose on penalties. To be honest if I was the England manager, I would have my team training consisting of nothing but taking penalties for eight hours a day.

We had one, brief, beautiful bright spot in 1966. Hosting the tournament at home, we started a bit slow, but then hit our stride and as any fan will tell you, beat Germany in the final, which made it all the more satisfying.

What many fans won’t know is the part the fairground played in our victory.

The Charlton Boys

The linchpins of the England team were a couple of Northern lads called Charlton. Bobby and Jackie to be precise. Hailing from the mining town of Ashington, they hailed from a family with deep connection to footballing fame. Their mother Cissie, was from the Milburn family. A number of her cousins played professionally, including the legendary wor Jackie. Jackie Milburn a legend of Newcastle United and England fame.

What has any of this got to do with the fairground industry you might ask?

Well, in 1934 a certain young man named Bob Charlton wanted to marry his sweetheart. Unfortunately with times being hard in the North East he didn’t have the money for a ring. Fortunately for him he wasn’t much of a footballer, but he was a handy boxer. At that time the travelling funfairs had boxing booths, where members of the public could enter, and if they lasted three rounds would win a cash prize.

Bob managed the three rounds, won the money to buy a wedding ring, and proposed to Cissie Milburn. Bob and Cissie went on to have four boys, including Jack and Bobby, who ended up in the England team in 66, and, well the rest is world cup history.

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Catering, Food Trucks, Fun Story, General

Quirky Food Trucks, From A Container To A Rocket Launcher

16 June 2023

At one time mobile catering consisted of almost entirely box shaped ‘burger vans’. Occasionally someone with a touch of flair, or perhaps just a bit mad, would put together something quirky. With the dawn of the instagram generation, boxy burger vans suddenly dropped out of vogue. To get ahead you really needed people to be sharing your set up. Sure, good food was important, but it was no longer the sole arbiter of success. Your food truck needed to look better.

We are going to be taking a look at some of the quirky, weird, wonderful and downright strange catering outlets around the world.

Happy Larrys

Shipping containers are ubiquitous throughout the world. A standardised method of transporting goods via road, rail and sea. Many of them however do find a second life as something totally different. From bars, to offices to mobile toilets. They have also found favour with catering vendors. The basic container is a strong watertight structure, that is built to accurate dimensions, and lends itself to conversions.

Happy as Larry is an Australian company that specialises in selling Napoli-style wood fired pizza. A nice touch in this container conversion is that they have replaced much of one side with huge glass pains to give a real contemporary feel to it.

Space Shuttle Cafe

If you are looking for something to convert into a food truck, the most obvious thing you could think of is an aeroplane. Probably not! This one was converted to a mobile eatery by GMC in 1976. But it started life as an actual flying machine in 1944.

Cotton Candy Jeep

One of our favourites this, take an iconic WWII off road vehicle, and shove a cotton candy (candy floss if you live this side of the pond) machine in the back. Oh and for good measure paint it all pink.

Walls Mini Ice Cream Truck

Walls ran a campaign called ‘Goodbye Serious’, where they built a miniaturised ice cream truck designed to drive into offices and dispense their best selling goodies. This is one seriously quirky little food truck. Though some of our taller staff might struggle to operate in this one.

K99 Ice Cream Cart

This one is notable, not for being a different type of food truck. But because of its target market. This sells ice creams for your canine companions. That’s right, doggy ice creams. Seems that scientists have discovered that gammon and chicken-flavored ice creams really hits the spot for our doggy friends.

Vintage Caravan

These are gaining in popularity, and are being used for everything from a gin bar to a burger joint. The ironic thing is, was during the late 90’s, the fairground industry used these for staff quarters, then tended to scrap them at the end of the season. If they were scrapped, it wasn’t unknow to just remove all identifying marks and leave them in a layby for the council to dispose of. You try buying one now, I have seen them advertised for upwards of £30k.

Step Frame Food Truck

More of a Stateside set up, they have a plethora of large step fram delivery vehicles from the likes of Dodge, Ford, GMC etc. These are pretty near the size of a 7.5 tonne lorry in the UK and make an ideal blank canvas to fit out as a mobile eatery

Airstream Style Food Truck

Another option hailing from the good ole US of A. Airstreams were originally touring caravans. Till some adventurous soul decided to cut the side out and add a kitchen. They are now a fairly regular sight on the UK scene. With both the original Airstream brand and a number of both EU based and Chinese manufacturers building similar looking trucks.

Converted Vintage Horsebox

A regular sight nowadays, horseboxes are easy to obtain, pretty easy to convert and very flexible, though a bit on the small side for some catering options. Prices are steadily rising, to the benefit of anyone needing to dispose of a horsebox that’s past it’s sell by date. What you once would have scrapped, you can now get a tidy few grand for.

Snow Mobile Food Truck

This one is as far as we know, pretty unique. A burrito joint on a tracked snow mobile platform. Great for last minute corporate jobs in the arctic. Bloody noisy if you need to take it down the M1 motorway to London.

London Red Bus Yoghurt Truck

An iconic British vehicle this time, an ex London Routemaster bus, turned into a yoghurt dispensary by Snog. A cool vehicle for a cool brand serving a cool product (literally)!

The Peanut Van

Occasionally there are totally custom built trucks out there. I’ve seen vehicles that look like hot dogs, doughnuts, oranges. This one is a peanut. Leaves you in no doubt what the product is.

Land Rover Ice Cream Truck

Another off road vehicle pressed into service. We have already had a Willy’s Jeep with a candyfloss machine. This one is the UK equivalent. In vehicles that is, not food. This is one cool ice cream truck.

Monster Truck

Another ice cream van. This time shoehorned into a monster truck. Unless you are 6ft 6 you need step ladders to be served here.

Rocket Launcher Coffee Truck

A big boys toy this one. A coffee truck on a rocket launcher. Though it didn’t work out too well for two of the staff when they were arrested for causing panic on the streets of Malaysia. What’s next, doughnuts served from a Challenger tank?

Tactical Tapas

Another paramilitary offering. Tapas from a tactical armoured car. It’s all starting to get a bit Mad Max.

Fire Engine

The last couple of options were built on trucks designed to blow things up and start fires. These were designed to put them out. Popular both sides of the pond, though the US fire trucks just seem to be a lot more jazzy.

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Catering, Equipment, Food Trucks, Fun Story

Burger Joints Of The World, Sambo’s Restaurant

13 June 2023

This time we are looking at what was once one of the biggest chains in America. At its peak they had over 1100 outlets. Now they are down to one. A number of factors came into play with this massive decline. One of which was the hugely controversial name.

Ostensibly the name was a contraction of two of the founders. Sam Battistone Sr. and Newell Bohnett. However the name is also one that was offensive to a large part of the population, especially with it being linked to a book written in 1897 called The Story of Little Black Sambo. Much of the interior decor drew on illustrations from the book.

Predictably the name attracted protests, criticism and petitions for change during most of its operating life. The final remaining store changing its name after the George Lloyd protests in 2020

The first store opened in Santa Barbara, California in 1957. By 1968 it had grown to operate in 98 cities across America. It also diversified operating Red Top Hamburgers, Heidi’s Pie Shop, and the Blue Ox Steak House.

Jolly Tiger

In the second half of the 70’s the chain came under increasing pressure regarding its unacceptable name. They steadfastly refused to change it, though in a number of locations they branded their eateries as Jolly Tiger, usually in locations where local laws had been passed forbidding the Sambo brand, or where they were having trouble obtaining permits due to the name.

In 1979 however the company reversed course and announced that they were dropping the Jolly Tiger brand citing poor financial performance, and would revert all restaurants to Sambo’s. They also cited a study claiming that three times as many black people ate at their chain than at other restaurants.

It was to be their peak. After 79 the company spiralled into decline. How much is down to the issues around the name isn’t clear, as a number of other corporate decisions also hastened their demise. One major issue arose when they dropped their “Fraction of the Action” scheme. This had paid the managers 20% of the outlets profits, with other staff being allowed to bid for percentages of the remaining profits.

Bankruptcy

A mere two years later the chain was filing for bankruptcy. Reorganisation and a name change to “No Place Like Sam’s” failed to help. And by 1982 all except the original diner had closed their doors. The restaurants were sold off to several operates, such as Denny’s and Baker’s square. All that now remains is the original located in Santa Barbara.

Following the riots over the George Floyd case, the owner Chad Steven, grandson of one of the original founders, finally gave in to public pressure and announced a name change, finally Christening it “Chafs” in 2020.

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Catering, Fun Story

Square Doughnuts

29 May 2023

That staple of dessert goodness, the doughnut is round right. Everyone knows that. If a lost tribe was discovered in the Amazon jungle they would know little of modern life other than Kim Kardashian has a large posterior and doughnuts are round.

Only they aren’t as I have just discovered. Seems some adventurous blasphemers have been making them square.

The Beignet

Actually as it turns out, the French (It would be them) have been making something called a Beignet for quite a long time. Seems it’s made from something called Pets-de-nonne, which sounds exotic and enticing, until it is translated into the English of Nun’s Fart. Lovely, so they eat frogs, horses and nun powered flatulance.

They also spread to the new world, in some of those states with French culture such as Louisiana and New Orleans. Being French they will no doubt taste fabulous.

Actual Square Doughnuts

Like many things it is arguable who made doughnuts square. Heck, people still argue over who made them round and who added the hole. The Square Doughnut Co in Terre Haute claim that their founder Richard Comer Sr. started making them in 1967. This could be true, though no doubt their will be a plethora of other claiming to have been square first.

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Catering, Food Trucks, Fun Story

21 Weird McDonald’s Burgers

23 May 2023

The one thing that was consistent at McDonalds was the food. All McDonalds served the same range of burgers, wraps etc. So where ever you go you have a familiar friendly menu right. Erm, no actually it isn’t. The fact is that McDonalds tailors many of its menus to suit the local market. There is no point for instance going heavy on the beef in India. Much of the population are Hindus who consider the cow a sacred animal. In fact in some parts of India it is illegal to sell beef. So lets look at some of the wonderful and weird McDonald burger options that you probably haven’t seen before.

Maharaja Mac

This is the result of selling into a market that consider your main ingredient to be sacred. Well, not exactly the beef, but the cow that donated in. So in the Indian market, McD’s replaced the beef with chicken.

The Benedict Bagel

Take a strip of bacon, a slice of cheese, a nicely rounded egg, a lashing of Hollandaise sauce, and stick it inside a bagel. What you then have is a sort of eggs Benedict. Available in the New Zealand market.

Japanese Black Burger

If you want weird food then go to Japan. Between eating stuff that is raw, deadly, still alive, there is also stuff that is black. This Big Mac replacement is made using squid ink, to give it that look. Add some spicy sauce and cheese and you have something that looks like its crawled out of halloween. Of all the weird McDonald’s burgers, this is the wierdest.

Maine Lobster Roll

High end food like lobster isn’t something you normally associate with a low rent burger joint like McD’s. However in certain markets such as Maine, and indeed at one time in Italy, they have short term specials. One such example was the McLobster.

McArabia

The McArabia, is available across the Arab world, and Pakistan. Two chicken patties, salad and tahini sauce, folded into a flat bread. To be fair it isn’t much different to a chicken sandwich, other than the choice of bread.

McRice

The McRice, available across the Philippines, pretty much starts out as a regular burger or chicken sandwich. Where it deviates, is in the bun. Or lack of a bun to be accurate. These are sandwiched between two slices of toasted rice.

Shrimp Burger

Across some of its Asian markets, Maccy D’s have replaced the beef with shrimp. Not all the beef we hasten to add, they still sell burgers, but this is an additional line. Shrimp ground up and made into a pattie, sweet chilli sauce and a corn dusted bun.

Pizza Mac

Many people love burgers, and also love pizza. So our teutonic friends, with their world renowned efficiency, combined the two. A big mac inside a pizza bun.

Pork Samurai

If you fancy a trip to Thailand, you can indulge yourself in a pork samurai. As typical McDonalds fare such as beef isn’t as common in the country, they have switched to pork. Teriyaki sauce, lettuce and mayo completes the ensemble.

Nurnburger

Another teutonic offering. Bratwurst sausages with mustard and onions. This one only had a brief run, but hey, nothing wrong with bratwurst.

Mashed Potato Burger

How do you improve on a Big Mac. Well, if you are part of the McDonald’s Chine team then the answer apparently, is topping it with a big dollop of mashed potato.

McKroket

Our Dutch cousins came up with this concoction. A mixture of ground beef and cheese made into a fried patty. Then topped with mustard.

KiwiBurger

Another New Zealand special, the kiwiburger. A beef patty with an egg and beetroot slices.

Burger and Cheese

It would seem that our friends in Brazil are partial to cheese. Very partial. In fact your burger comes with a big tub of melted cheddar to dip into.

Crab Croquette Burger

Another entry from the land of the rising sun. This one is made from snow crab and mushrooms. Reports are it isn’t as nice as it sounds.

Cordon Bleu Burger

An entry from Poland. This one is ideal for those who can’t make their mind up. Beef, chicken and bacon.

Bulgogi Burger

From South Korea, comes the Bulgogi burger. A pork patty covered in sticky Bulgogi sauce a sweet, smoky, and slightly tangy concoction.

McToast

An Italian concoction, this must be the most appetizing looking piece of food ever. Did they use special software to remove all the colour from the picture? We love weird McDonalds, but not this one.

Dosa Masala Burger

A thin fermented rice and lentil pancake mixed with spicy potato. And drizzled with chutney mayo. It doesn’t really look appetizing, but the Indians must like it.

McFalafel

Three pieces of falafel garnished with tomatoes, lettuce, onion, pickles and topped with Tehina sauce served in a tortilla wrap.

McTurco

Turkish kebabs in a flat bread. Where else, but Turkey. Another local delicacy that should be shared with the wider McDonalds family.

When you look there are some really weird McDonald’s offering out there.

McDonalds

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Catering, Equipment, Event Planning, Food Trucks, Fun Story, funfair events, Funfair Games

Case Study, The 100% Club

19 May 2023

A short case study about our support for the 100% Club scheme.

About 4 or 5 years ago we supplied a single ride, a Carousel to a school in Leeds. This carried on for about three years, until they suddenly expanded the booking and starting reserving multiple rides and catering.

It turns out that they were running a 100% club. Any kid that had a 100% attendance record for that term would be entitled to spend a period of time at the mini funfair they had booked.

Suddenly we started receiving requests from other schools for the exact same thing. Turns out they were all part of an academy group of schools. We now provide attractions regularly to something like 9 different schools. This ranges from the latest thrill rides to things like burger and chips.

Talking to some of the teachers, it seems that they had posted an increase in average attendance at the schools running the scheme.

The Health and Safety team at the schools were pretty fierce at the first events, and had us jumping through hoops. Gradually they seemed to relax a little and adopt an attitude of suggesting slight improvements where necessary, rather than making a big issue of it. I think the fact that we put so much effort into doing things right, coupled with us making changes as soon as they request them, helped a lot.

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Equipment, Event Planning, Fun Story, General

New Equipment, Fuel Bunker

13 May 2023

When worked the funfair circuit we needed a generator for powering our equipment. Well, we used four of them in fact. When we moved totally into corporate entertainment we made it a condition of the contract that the client provided power.

This work well for a number of years, as usually we were powering perhaps a candy floss and a popcorn machine, so at most a couple of 13 amp sockets were fine.

During covid we suddenly found our clients asking us to provide larger catering services, such as serving four thousand burgers for Amazon in four hours, though that is another tale lol.

Generators

We suddenly found ourselves needing sixty and seventy amp supplies. So to translate this into a format that made sense to the client we would specify that we needed like four 13 amp supplies. What would happen is that we would arrive at the venue, be handed a four way socket and told here are your four supplies. Trouble is, the four sockets joined into a single 13amp plug. And ‘Oh’ they would say, ‘your sharing with the DJ, pizza truck and rodeo bull!’

Great, we were gonna be pulling 100 amp from a single 13amp plug. So no power problems expected then.

To circumvent this, we ended up adding some generators to our line up.

This gave us the flexibility to power ourselves and some spare capacity to boot.

Initially we would fill them up from a local garage that sold red diesel. But even though it was only about 4 miles away, it was still a hassle to couple up and run down there for fuel. Additionally at the time it was about £1.40 a litre from them. The local diesel supplier quoted £0.82 a litre, which was a massive saving, but would only deliver a 1000 litres a time.

So we added a fuel bunker to take advantage of this. Other people we know had similar but owning for lift trucks, would simply lift them in the air to allow gravity to dispense the fuel. Not owning a fork lift, we added a battery powered system and a metered pump.

We installed the system in the yard and had it filled. Then had a think about security. Some people feel entitled to help themselves to whatever without legal niceties such as ownership being considered relevant.

So we set about fortifying our diesel. A wifi camera provided not only monitoring of the set up, but would automatically light up the area, sound an alarm and alert me at my phone that someone was at the bunker. We also added locks to the on/off valve, filling hole. and pump switch.

My daughter pointed out that the battery just being sat there was screaming take me take me. So we fitted a secured steel lock box with the battery inside. A jokey conversation with a friend who looked at the system ended with him saying I am surprised you haven’t electrified it.

Ha, cant do that someone might touch it accidentally. Ha, they might, ha ha that could be fun. Yeah lets do it.

The end result is that the system is now fitted with a similar energiser to what farmers use to keep cows in their field. To be fair, it is remotely controlled, and not left live all the time. But I can turn it on from anywhere in the world using my phone. We also added a solar charger to keep the whole shebang topped up.

So our fuel bunker is ready for all comers.

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Fun Story

Tales Of Misadventure, Killer Monkey

10 May 2023

Years gone by, animal menageries were a regular site on fairgrounds. Most people hadn’t seen exotic animals, so the chance to visit a sideshow with some of the more weird and wonderful inhabitants of our planet was a big draw.

By the time I was growing up on the funfair circuit, they had disappeared. The only one with anything exotic was Uncle Gilbert Chadwicks show that had mostly things like six legged sheep (dead and stuffed) and other weird things. It also had a monkey. An actual real live monkey called Joey.

Now some of the older kids would collect dead goldfish from the hook a duck stalls, and feed them to Joey. I was invited along one day to take part in this ritual. Unfortunately not being trained in the art of feeding monkeys, I held onto the fish a little too long, and Joey decided that the quickest way to his meal, was to bite me first to get me to let go.

I remember Colin, one of the bigger kids, giving me a drink of his shandy, as a sort of bribe to not tell my dad what had happened. Unfortunately walking in with blood streaming down my hand elicited a demand as to what had happened.

The Hospital

Cue a trip to the hospital. Which wouldn’t have been too bad, unfortunately we happened to be at Hartlepool at the time.

Now, if you don’t hail from the North East, then you might not be aware of the legend of the monkey hangers. That’s how locals are referred to by other denizens of the North East. The legend is, that during the Napoleonic wars. A French ship floundered off the coast of Hartlepool. Eventually being shipwrecked, the only survivor being the ships mascot which happened to be a monkey.

The monkey luckily survived and managed to make it to shore. Where unluckily it found itself in Hartlepool. The locals, never having met a Frenchman, arrested the unfortunate primate as an enemy combatant. They tried to question the monkey, which steadfastly refused to reply. Presumably being a French monkey it didn’t understand English.

After a short trial, where Monsieur Monkey refused to offer anything in his defence. They found him guilty of invading Hartlepool and sentenced him to immediate death by hanging. Perhaps if the poor sod had been fortunate enough to be shipwrecked somewhere civilised it might have had a longer lifespan. This one was more monkey killed than monkey killer.

Anyway, having been informed by dad that I had been bitten, the doctor understandably asked by what.

The answer of a monkey didn’t really go down to well, with the doctor being a local lad. After a second request for the breed of animal met with the same answer he became quite irate. Dad calmed him down and explained the situation. Seeing the funny side, I am sure the doctor repeated that story regularly on his coffee breaks. Anyway, a call to a specialist wid animal resource in London brought the reply that it should be treated the same way as a dog bite. A bloody big needle of anti tetanus, and a through clean and bandaging of the wound. So after all I survived the attack of the killer monkey.

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Equipment, Fun Story

New Equipment, Nissan Primastar

6 May 2023

We have pretty much always ran PSA group vans. Primarily Citroen Dispatches, and last year we added a Vauxhall Vivaro, same van, different badge. The Vauxhall was the LWB version which came in handy when transporting our gourmet burger units.

To be fair, they have been pretty reliable. Normally we swapped the oldest one in each year. Covid, mucked the system up, and we found ourselves needing three new vans.

Originally in 2021 we ordered a new Dispatch. It was going to be delivered for September. Then October, November December, January, and finally some time after March. At that point we cancelled it.

That turned out to be a mistake, since between ordering and cancelling it, the price had gone up some four grand, and the spec had been cut in half.

Everywhere we looked, they were quoting, pretty much indeterminate delivery times. Eventually I happened on a garage with a Vauxhall Vivaro, still at a reasonable spec, but a lot more expensive then we had been paying for vans. We added that to the fleet last March.

Vauxhall Vivaro

Roll around 2023 and the decision was made that we needed another two vans. Queue a look around our usual suppliers. What we found was that they had gone up another four grand since last year, while simultaneously the spec was cut again. So in effect, we would be paying more per van than the top of the range versions had been a couple of years ago. And for our money we would be getting something not much above the minimum spec.

Enter Nissan Primastar

To be honest, the cut in spec pissed me off as much as the jump in price, so I decided that maybe it was time to look around. Now that isn’t as easy as it sounds. Citroen, Peugeot, Fiat, Toyota and Vauxhall are all the same van. We hired a couple of Ford Custom’s one Christmas, and everyone refused to drive them, the handling was that poor. My experience with Mercedes vans, is that if you drive through a puddle of water they start to fall apart with rust within the week. VW transporters were liked, but just too bloody expensive for what you got.

Eventually we turned up at Nissan. The vans were a nice drive, slightly larger inside both the load area and the cabin than our previous vans which was a plus. Similar on fuel economy. Came with a shorter service interval than Citroen which is a bit crap, but were twenty per cent cheaper and came with a top of the range spec. they didn’t come with twin side loading doors as standard, but it was an option for only £280. So overall we decided to give them a chance and ordered two.

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