The Lemon Tree
(Page 2 of 3)
May/June 1972
By Brian Rogers
We sell the eight-ounce cups for 20 ¢ and the 16-ouncers for 35 ¢ . Every night we figure out how many servings we sold, what they cost (prices will vary somewhat from day to day due to melting ice, fluctuations in lemon costs, etc.) and how much gross profit is left over. Fifty percent of that excess goes to the person who is selling (or two people, a driver/money-changer and the lemonade maker) and 50% pays off the investment.
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There were a few hassles with city officials in the beginning (that held us up for about three weeks from the time we bought the truck until we sold our first cold drink), but we straightened them out. Our biggest current hassle is a 2¢-per-glass sales tax. I don't know about future tax problems, but—in the best tradition of American business—we're figuring on as many loopholes as possible.
There are only about 25,000 people in the Fairbanks area so we work a little differently than the plan outlined in MOTHER NO. 3. Mostly, we drive around the residential sections at right and on weekends and cover the business area during the day. We vary the route to take advantage of any activity that draws a crowd: baseball and Little League games; motorcycle, boat and drag races; downtown at lunchtime; construction sites during coffee breaks (working people really dig lemonade instead of coffee all the time); university campuses; organization tion picnics; fairs. Check with your local Chamber of Commerce for other ideas. Most localities have a summer festival (ours called Golden Days) that it will pay you to attend.
OUR SIDE OF THE STORY
We missed the first month of good warm weather (Alas doesn't have a whole lot of that kind) and the late start hurt us financially . . . but, finally—one cool and windy night—we drove to the University and sold lemonade at a free outside concert. We squeezed lemons, dipped water, shook pitchers . and sold $22 worth of lemonade. We were on our way!
For the next couple of weeks we trucked around town with a soft bell until we got permission to sell on campus. Each morning after that (or afternoon, if we slept late) we parked at the University for the day and peddled our wares. Sometimes we toured the city and cut into the ice cream trucks' business a little (parents like the idea of nutritious, fresh lemonade better than ice milk-and-syrup preparations). We take longer to cover an area than the ice cream people, however, so we aren't any real competition.
When we're selling on the run, we work out of the front windows (they're big but the customers can't watch us mix the drinks too well). We like it better when we park, slide the door up — it covers the whole back end of the van — and sell off the serving table so that everyone can see us operate.
We didn't peddle any lemonade at all for a week or two when there were forest fires in our area and Andy went out to fight them while I drove the firefighters around in school buses (we made a lot of our summer money that way). We stopped selling again the first week in August when temperatures began regularly dropping below 60° F . . . and opened a week later at the State Fair with a booth (we sold sandwiches and cigarettes, too) alongside The Lemon Tree. The State Fair space cost us $100 plus 15% of our gross sales.
