Last week, Rachel and Arthur took a road trip down to Los Angeles to check in on the construction of our food truck! Look how shiny it is!

Here are a few more photos from the trip. We’ve officially paid for the now fully-constructed truck. The last step is to apply the colorful exterior vinyl wrap, which will hopefully happen the first week in December. If all goes according to (our very revised) plan, we should have the truck before Christmas!

Waiting for the big exterior makeover

Inside the truck

Shouldn’t be that hard to drive… right?

Almost ready for business!

Ah, fall. That time of year when you wake up to a cool, crisp morning and still have a few hours warm afternoon sunlight streaming through the red and yellow leaves. In Sonoma, it also means the rain is on its way, and we are happy to have had a decent downpour earlier this week.

Drums & Crumbs is in its own season of change. Our pop-up cafe at the Renaissance Marin came to an expected but abrupt end as a new food business moved into the space full time. We have used this extra day to prepare for our biggest change yet, the food truck!

Like many of you, we are impatient for it to be finished, but the end is finally in sight. Construction is finished and all inspections are completed. All it needs is its bright and beautiful vinyl wrap before it’ll make the journey from Los Angeles to the North Bay. As with every other step so far, things seem to be moving slower than they should, but we have embraced the opportunity to get organized and introduce a few new faces to our team.

We are also in the final stages of one more exciting surprising… a new website!  Our designer at Design Womb and our programmer at Spark Creative have collaborated to create a beautiful, modern website that captures the Drums & Crumbs brand perfectly and showcases what we offer. We can’t wait for you to see it!

We have two weeks left at the Valley of the Moon Farmers Market on Tuesday evenings in Sonoma, so come see us before its over!

Rachel visits Legion Manufacturing outside of Los Angeles

Over the holiday weekend, Rachel headed down to Southern California to check out the progress on our food truck in person. We knew the truck had been purchased and construction had begun, but, even after repeated requests, our builder never sent photos of the truck or its progress, so we wanted to see it for ourselves.

What a beauty!

The perfect blank slate for our colorful vinyl wrap

Through the back door

As you can see, the electrical wiring and counters are installed. This week, it will hopefully be inspected by the Department of Housing and have a smog inspection. After that, it’ll take a couple of weeks to install the appliances and the plumbing. After the final touches inside, they will send it out to get wrapped in the beautiful design created for us by Design Womb. Theoretically, we could have it mid-August… but we won’t start planning our grand opening until it is actually on its way.

Rachel decided to make a weekend out of the trip, driving Highway 1 through Big Sur, spending two nights in Santa Barbara, and passing through Santa Cruz on her way home.

Rachel & her boyfriend Todd at Big Sur

Big Sur

Santa Cruz

Starting in May, due to our new commitment at the Valley of the Mood Farmers’ Market every Tuesday night in Sonoma, we will only be at the Renaissance Marin on Wednesdays from 9am to 2:30pm.

Then starting in June, if all things go according to plan (and we’ve already learned they sometimes don’t), we’ll be moving into the food truck full time and will have to say goodbye the pop-up cafe. But don’t worry, San Rafael friends, we are planning to have the truck in downtown San Rafael for lunch at least a couple of times a week!

A full schedule of our regular food truck locations will be posted closer to its launch date.

Thank you to everyone who has come and visited us at the cafe! We’ll still be there until the end of May, so come see us!

Edit: Due to a delay with the truck, we will be at the cafe every THURSDAY from 9:30am to 2:30pm through the end of June!

Tension was high, and Arthur and I were barely on speaking terms as we loaded the food into the car and drove to the site of our first catering gig: a movie set at a marina in Sausalito. We drove in circles looking for the location, and eventually someone had to come find us and direct us to the set. We were surprised to find a dark, dirt lot with a single street light. There were no tables in sight, something we had neglected to discuss beforehand.

We were three hours late by the time we got there, and yet all of the actors and production crew were excited to see us arrive. The only person who knew our scheduled delivery time was the director, a friend of Arthur’s who had bartered a fried chicken dinner for his film crew in exchange for producing our Kickstarter video. He was either too busy or too kind to mention our epic snafu.

The original idea was to feed everyone before they started filming, but we arrived just as they were wrapping up, so we became the post-filming treat. We opened up the back of the minivan and had another car park beside us under the one streetlight, and then we proceeded to have an old fashioned tailgate party. Our worries about the food and the scheduling disaster were proven to be misplaced as we received glowing compliments about every dish.

I vividly remember the emotions that night as Arthur and I struggled to cook and deliver that dinner for 25 people. That memory now stands in stark contrast to the ease at which we, with the help of an employee and two friends, cooked and delivered a very similar menu (only with refined recipes and better execution) for 90 people a couple of weeks ago. In recognition of this first year of significant — and sometimes painful — growth, I’m passing the keyboard to Arthur to share his own reflections on the lessons learned and challenges faced.

Drums & Crumbs Co-Founder & Co-Owner Arthur Chang Reflects On The Highs & Lows Of Our First Year In Business

Arthur Chang, Co-Founder & Co-Owner of Drums & Crumbs LLC

3 Things I have Learned So Far:

1. Running a small business has taught me more patience than I have ever thought I possessed.

Most of my really close friends and my old work colleagues know that I am a pretty impatient person when it comes to things in day to day life. That is why I thrived in my old job where information was expected and received quickly on both sides of the table. It is also why I thrived in NYC: it is a much faster pace than most anywhere in the world.

After having started this business, I have learned that the parties on the other side of the various business interactions I have had with work at their own pace. I’ve realized that I have to learn to accept this and know that thing will get accomplished  — just maybe not in my own internal time frame.

This newfound patience has surprised me because I really didn’t think I was capable of that. I am starting to learn that the ultimate priority is that the business succeeds over my own personality quirks. I have learned to not respond negatively to waiting longer than I want and stay aware of the larger picture. I am not perfect in this but I think I have adapted pretty well.

 2. The support of friends and family has been so overwhelmingly great that has really surprised me.

I know most people in your life want you to succeed, but the fact that so many have responded with verbal, written, emotional, and even monetary support via our Kickstarter campaign has really astonished me. Half of the reason I am still on this path is the fact that I know so many people want us to thrive and do well. In my lowest moments, I think of them, and it renews my ambition to move on.

3. One of the greatest joys I have ever had is watching complete strangers eat our food and then tell me how much they enjoy it and how happy they are that we are doing this.

That feeling they give me never gets old and is again one of the main reasons I keep pushing on.

 Most Memorable Experiences

 1. Taste of Sonoma

This was the first event when we offered our food to a great mass of people in such a unique and great atmosphere. The response from the people there affirmed that I had made the right choice in terms of the concept.

2. Meeting with the Opportunity Fund to discuss our loan process, and completing the loan application process itself.

I never really thought of myself as a true business person until I sat in a meeting room with the loan officer and our financial adviser and had to lay out our case and provide data and answer specific financial questions about our business concept.

Further, going through the loan application and having to provide financial reports made me realize this “project” (e.g. the business) was a real thing. It was a humbling experience realizing how much money is involved in just starting one small business organically.

Greatest Challenges

1. Getting the food truck built

It’s a little ironic that our main goal is perpetually my biggest challenge right now. I have always heard stories about how long it takes to build a restaurant or house, and as it turns out, that basically applies to any construction project. When it comes down to it, when you have to rely on a contractor to get your project completed, there are going to be delays, and you have to adjust to their individual quirks and way of doing thing. Since they are often small businesses too, there is no clear, standardized way of doing things. All one can do is maintain constant communication and move things as quickly along as possible while keeping a congenial relationship with that contractor.

 2.The kitchen learning curve

The next biggest challenge for me is the learning curve in the kitchen. I have always enjoyed cooking for fun and to entertain on a simple level, but I have never styled myself as a chef. Even though our menu isn’t complicated, I have realized that I have had to learn a lot more to be able to produce food for consumer consumption. This has given me a new respect for all chefs and cooks alike.

I am glad I have a good partner who cares about standards and has made me better in the kitchen. I also know that I want to eventually hire culinary professionals who have more talent and ability than I have to get our product to the next level. I know my strengths lie elsewhere.

Thank You!

With all the ups and downs of our first year of business, I am especially grateful for everything and everyone.

I know we are off to a good start, and I am looking forward to bringing our food truck  and our food to as many people as possible in this next year!

Meanwhile, our food truck manufacturer has been monitoring auctions and online sales for the actual truck. We are buying a used truck that will be custom outfitted with all new commercial equipment. Among other things, our truck will have two fryers, an oven, two refrigerators and a freezer. It will also have a display case installed below the order window so customers will be able to see all of our yummy desserts and other special items for sale.

Once we buy the truck and the plans are approved, the manufacturer will start building, so cross your fingers for a speedy approval process!

Even Korean pop singer Psy has his own truck (or at least once with his face on it)!

This past weekend, Arthur and Rachel took a trip down to Los Angeles to tour and select a food truck fabricator! After communicating with a number of fabricators, we narrowed it down to three and took a road trip to meet them in person and tour the facilities.

It was really fun and interesting touring food trucks at every point in the manufacturing process. We even got a few ideas for our own truck.

In the end, we were most impressed with Legion Manufacturing and have hired them to design and build our truck! A huge thanks to everyone we met during our trip. We can’t wait to see our food truck come to life.

First stop: SoCal Cater Truck Pros

Second stop: Legion Manufacturing

Third stop: Kareem Cart

Open every Tuesday and Wednesday, 9am to 2:30pm

Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center of Marin

1115 3rd St  San Rafael, CA 94901

Thank you everyone who came to the Grand Opening!

We offer an assortment of muffins and biscuits to go with our French press coffee and organic hot tea

Rachel ready to take your order

Arthur serving up plates of his crispy and juicy fried chicken

In the meantime, we have several exciting projects to announce, so stay tuned!

Please visit our campaign page to see our interesting and fun rewards and help us get our truck!