Rightly or wrongly i assesed your OP as market research. And i’m prepared for the fact i could be wrong and you as a non user of butty vans want to know what we (as drivers who use them) want to see in them.
Don’t reckon i am though.
Maybe i’m well out of touch too, maybe there is a waiting market for mobile coffee shops, just like the explosion of Starbucks et al… But that is still gonna involve lorry drivers sitting round chatting ■■■■, albeit younger ones. I havn’t figured out yet if anyone will like the idea of someone sleeping in a mobile retail unit. I’m working on that .
Morning to do with food. We have a printing business online and want to go mobile with it. If I go Lorry based I am considering putting sleeping area in it while at shows. If I go van route it means towing my caravan and that probably means adding a tachometer to be legal.
If it works I can hang up my class 1 forever. If it doesn’t I’m back where I was
midlifetrucker:
Morning to do with food. We have a printing business online and want to go mobile with it. If I go Lorry based I am considering putting sleeping area in it while at shows. If I go van route it means towing my caravan and that probably means adding a tachometer to be legal.
Ok, so how come you wanna know what lorry drivers want in a snack bar when you don’t frequent them mainly because there’s lorry drivers using them ? Finding out what they want would encourage more of them and be conterproductive to you?
truckman020:
went to one a few years ago,geezer sat there with a rab nesbitt top on [string vest]and a young girl was doing the food there was filth all over the floor inc grease and she was walking in it bare foot,i bought an egg sandwich and a tea,took one bite from the sandwich and spat it on the ground in disgust,was not cooked properly,absolutely disgusting place tea tasted like dishwater [probably was]threw that away as well,place was a proper health hazard,[A3 near Guildford London bound]
That must be a joke. You saw these awful conditions and proceeded to buy food? You’ve no one to blame but yourself for wasting money on crap food!
midlifetrucker:
Morning to do with food. We have a printing business online and want to go mobile with it. If I go Lorry based I am considering putting sleeping area in it while at shows. If I go van route it means towing my caravan and that probably means adding a tachometer to be legal.
Ok, so how come you wanna know what lorry drivers want in a snack bar when you don’t frequent them mainly because there’s lorry drivers using them ? Finding out what they want would encourage more of them and be conterproductive to you?
I just asked a question out of interest. No ulterior motive. If there was a mobile food place selling noodles or something different I might give it a try.
I have spoken to some great drivers over the Years on loading bays and cafes and vans it’s just the ones that strut at their local ones like they own it and gobbing off. Every trade has it.
bazza123:
When on a day off (weak bridge) there is a brilliant snack van in Potter Heigham near the bridge.
Also the hot dog man near Morrisons in Norwich.
Is that Bangers and Beverages opposite Lathams? I used to use it about 10 years ago when I was on the buses, but have been hesitant to go again since it looks like it’s been taken over. There was that woman in the big layby just before Acle and her stuff was fantastic. Been taken over now, and they’re buying catering crap so not wanting to have my fingers burned again.
Never tried the hot dog man, but today I will when I pick up the missus from work
Stopped at Cairn Lodge on the m74 to use the van in the lorry park as i was walking over the lady was scrubbing a floor mat another driver got there in front of me she got back into the van and wiping her hands on her apron before lifting 2 bits of bacon for the first driver “what can i get you” she says “eh can of Coke please”
I’ve seen the ingredients list on the sorts of burgers and bangers served up in those vans. The premium products are really good stuff. The economy ranges have about as much beef heart as beef in them plus fillers, but as long as you don’t mind eating heart then they still aren’t that bad. No worse than than budget food sold at supermarkets. Still unhealthy as hell so I rarely stop at a burger van.
chris_g:
So what food would you like catering vans to serve ■■?
i’d prefer it if they just shut up shop and made more room in the lay-bys tbh.
Good answer. Although I do like winding them up by parking in one with restricted space and then sit in my cab, stuffing my face with the free stuff I get given by customers, right close to the T-Coli van.
Apparently if you attend Burford School, the T-Coli van in the layby outside said school will supply you with much more than elephant meat inside a stale bread roll…
You don’t know how lucky you all are. In this part of the world such roadside food vendors are few and far between, then when there is one there are at least 3 others within a few hundred feet
When I go to load in Port Newark NJ and drive down the long road between the container companies to my liquid supply company there are 4 in a row, each run by not so desirable geezers. My last visit I stopped for breakfast and the conversation went like this, bear in mind the vendor was of Hispanic decent … “Bacon and egg sandwich please ?”
“We don’t have that”
“You don’t have bacon or don’t have eggs”
“We have egg”
“But no bacon ?”
“No” … I looked at the grill in the back and see bacon frying.
“I’ll have egg and that stuff there”
“Ok, so bacon and egg then”
Duhhhh
bazza123:
When on a day off (weak bridge) there is a brilliant snack van in Potter Heigham near the bridge.
Also the hot dog man near Morrisons in Norwich.
Is that Bangers and Beverages opposite Lathams? I used to use it about 10 years ago when I was on the buses, but have been hesitant to go again since it looks like it’s been taken over. There was that woman in the big layby just before Acle and her stuff was fantastic. Been taken over now, and they’re buying catering crap so not wanting to have my fingers burned again.
Never tried the hot dog man, but today I will when I pick up the missus from work
Yes it is opposite Lathams, it’s sort of semi permanent so has been there a few years but I’m not sure who owned it before. It’s good as far as snack vans go . The chip shop is IMHO, not very good .
I hear Kens chip shop in Wroxham is under new ownership and good.
Did you take your bus over Potter bridge, I assumed it had a lower weight limit??
The hog dog man is in the big car park outside Matalan with I think a red canopy. I sometimes get two
Who remembers the burger van at Ross on Wye cattle market? Now that one sorted the men from the boys when it came to stomach lining thickness.
Working nights I don’t see many open. Used to be a good one on Team Valley Ind Est outside Smiths News that was open into the late evening and did some cracking roast beef dinners in a large poly tray with roasties, veg, gravy etc for about £3. Not been up that way for a long time now but last few times I was there she wasn’t open (late evening).
Rach’s burger van at the Palletforce hub in Burton is a bit of a mixed bag. The roast beef dinners have the most horrible tasting beef I’ve ever experienced and the chicken curries use low rent chicken with no taste, but the chilli con carne and pasta dinners she does are really nice, and you get ■■■■■■■ tons too. She can’t make a tea or coffee to save her life though and the ones out of the machine in the canteen are 10x better, especially the coffee, and cheaper too.
roadhog69:
Large van on A27 westbound Lewes-Brighton. Usually three staff (look OK from a distance!) always busy no matter what the time which says everything. Portaloo nearby. Long layby but don’t park on the bus stop - seen plod issuing tickets there and they pass often as headquarters nearby and have also seen them eating there.
Used to stop there after getting off the boat at Newhaven, opens about 4:30am & the staff are always polite even at that time in the morning. Food always spot on in my opinion and its always busy.
Used to use them years ago but not anymore. I seem to have become a fussy git that’s got a thing about high standards of hygiene with my food in my old age.
There’s one particular van I pass regularly and the cheesy name on the side coupled with a 25 stone old bird behind the counter that wears a T shirt with “Big G” across it is enough for me. Its called “License to Grill” FFS. WTF is that all about?
I often wonder where/how she thaws out her sausages!
