Recovered Peter Zeimet story arc — July 2010 through May 2011.
In the summer of 2010, Peter Zeimet started building a mobile lunch-wagon business from the ground up. He called the concept NOTHING FRIED.
He sent me the proposed menu first: tortellini, ravioli, spaghetti, carbonara angel hair, fettuccine, salads, sausage and meatball sandwiches, rice bowls, chili, vegetables and snacks. He was already thinking like an operator, adding choices for chicken, sausage, vegetables, cheese, garlic-toast strips and different sauces.
LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK. Hopefully I will be open early next year.
— Peter
Then came the wagon itself. Peter found one small unit for about $4,900 and immediately started joking about what to call it.
The darned thing is cute as a bug. We could call it “Little Danielle’s Outhouse.”
Within days he had drawn the entire interior as an assembly line: pasta holder, pasta cooker, hot meat and vegetable holder, sauce warmer, salad toppings, coolers, sinks, chili warmer, coffee maker, storage, cash drawer and a rolling cart for moving supplies in and out of the commissary kitchen.
And then, in a follow-up that could only have come from Peter:
I forgot the rice cooker. It goes next to the hot meat holder. — DUH
The numbers kept changing. Countertop refrigeration looked too expensive, then a larger refrigerator began to make more sense. In August he found a Pace trailer builder in Hurricane, Utah, offering a larger unit with wiring, counters, lights and electric trailer brakes for about $7,215. That gave him enough room to rethink the whole layout again.
Meanwhile, he tested recipes. One Caribbean-spiced bacon and pasta dish became, in Peter’s words, “definitely saleable.” He asked how I made Korean barbecue sauce, then proposed meatballs in spicy Korean sauce over cabbage with cucumber, tomato, green onion and mushrooms.
Well, it is supposed to be fusion!!!!!!
He was also thinking hard about the Reno market, pricing, overhead and where a mobile operation might work. Construction sites looked promising, especially with geothermal development around northern Nevada. He also found a commercial kitchen in Sparks that could be rented by food-cart vendors.
By January 2011 he was dealing with inspection requirements right down to flame-resistant clothing and food-safe uniform construction. In May, he thought he might finally be ready to open.
Monday would be nice, but I may need another day or two.
The timing could not have been worse. Peter was also dealing with serious health problems and had only recently learned that diabetes was behind months of worsening symptoms. He had lost significant weight, had trouble with dizziness and vision, and was trying to stabilize his health while finishing the business.
Two weeks later, the experiment was over.
I am or actually have suspended the food wagon. Customer reception for what I sold was good.
The problem was not the food. Peter said customers liked what he sold. But the local economy had collapsed to the point that many workers no longer had real lunch breaks. Fuel and food costs had risen sharply, regulations had changed, insurance costs had jumped, new fire-safety requirements had forced expensive reconstruction, and his health could not tolerate the long hours.
So the “Nothing Fried” wagon became one more Peter story: ambitious, detailed, funny, overengineered, food-obsessed, and launched into circumstances that changed faster than he could adapt to them.
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