Door #4, please.

Sometimes decisions are easy to make.  There's usually a clear distinct answer, or rather 2 options that are clearly wrong which leaves you with your answer. But what if doors 1-3 are all wrong? Well, that's when you have to either look for door #4 in out of the ordinary places or create the door from scratch.

With the job situation not exactly going as planned/imagined, I'm definitely looking at some out of the box solutions to the slight "money needed to pay for the roof over my head" dilemma.  Not that I've stopped job hunting entirely, I'm just starting to look at some more entrepreneurial options.

I've loved to cook ever since my dad said one day, "Hey, this is even better than when your mom makes it!" My mom is a great cook. :)

I put a lot of love into everything I cook. Being able to feed a hungry stomach is such a blessing and it makes me happy. So, that first week when I moved to Hawaii and I had my first dinner party at the apartment and I made chicken curry, potato curry and fresh tortillas (lame, I know, I usually would have made 3-4 more dishes) but I had just moved in and needed groceries/dishes. Anyhow.. the food came out great and I was encouraged to start a restaurant.  The next week, after making several more dishes, my roommate insisted I look into possibly a food truck.  She had done this herself many many years ago. I started to think it would be possible for me to do this. There's a market definitely as there are very few (I think just 2 in Honolulu) Indian restaurants and I've heard they are pricey. I would cater to the students at the university or perhaps the military as they are usually diverse in nationality and option to different cuisines.

So, with the idea in my head, I started off doing my research. Called up the Dept of Health, asked tons and tons of questions and found out what exactly I would need to do to get started. My two largest hurdles: finding a catering truck and a commercial kitchen to cook from.  With a quick Craigslist search I found this:

 

 

Yeah, the Jammin Wagon.  I didn't exactly mind the name, I figured I'd be blasting my bhangra music anyhow, so the name did work. Though the interior needed a LOT of work.  The steps into the van were broken, there were propane tanks everywhere and they were NOT secure so it seemed like it could be a disaster waiting to happen. This beauty was for sale for $12k. What more, the seller was in a rush as he was headed back to the mainland within the week or 2 so he needed me to decide right away.

I figured it would be a lot of work to clean up, but that didn't scare me away. What did was the fact that this was a 1995 Diesel truck with more than 200k miles on it.  If I dropped what I had saved up thus far "my life savings" into this truck and have it turn out to be a dud in the near future would total bad news.  Plus the fact I was being rushed didn't set well with me. After hearing the opinions of my former bosses, I decided to move on.

Next idea.. skip the truck, go straight for a restaurant. :)  Today I called up a few commercial realtors and checked in re a few interesting properties I had walked by and found on the web. After all, running a small scale restaurant couldn't be too bad, right? Wrong! :) I found out quickly that the budget even for a dinky lil place was well over 100k - not my cup of tea (at the moment). So, on to the next idea. Ha, the wheels never stop turning. :)

So as of now, Tuesday (Jan 31) night at 11:15 pm, the idea that is brewing in my head is to start a small catering company.  I love to cook. People love to eat what I cook. There's a need and demand for good/quality Indian food in Honolulu.. so why not go to where the people are? Meaning, if someone was hosting a dinner party but didn't want to cook, I'd totally be happy to go to their place (take over their kitchen temporarily) and cook the whole authentic Indian meal there, either before or even while the guests were there.  I've done this before several times - as a gift. I'd ask what they wanted to eat (I'd prepare a menu for them to select from), buy all the ingredients, bring my pots and pans, and head over to their place and do all the cooking and cleaning right there. Always a joy, always a success.  So, why not as a business?? I'm thinking about it as I'm headed off to sleep. Tomorrow's task, find out from DOH, what would be needed to start such a biz, contact other "personal chefs/caterers" and pick their brains. :)  Good night.