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From Schoolteacher to Fairground Food Boss: My Story of Building a Booming Carnival Food Business
It started with a whisper at the fair… and turned into a decades-long food business adventure.
Hearsay suggests that every little boy, and maybe every little girl, too, wants to run away and join the circus.
Well, as a young adult, I did nearly that, and it was better than I could have ever dreamed.
I grew up in a stable, loving home with two parents, a brother, and my mom’s mom, Gram.
After high school, I headed off to a small college in Vermont, and when I graduated with my teaching degree, I landed a job in that same rural area as an elementary teacher in a two-room schoolhouse.
One summer, we went to the fair, which was an agricultural event that celebrated the harvest season. Along with the 4-H shows, the cattle barns, and the dairy display, there was a carnival on the opposite end of the fairgrounds.
As we wandered around on that warm Friday night, I was especially impressed by the long lines at the food booths. I whispered to my husband, “We could do that,” and he agreed.
A business was born with those four little words. By the following summer, we had secured a booth rental from the fair president. It was awful — located under the old wooden grandstand, built over a century before. It had a dirt floor and was dusty and dirty. When the bleachers above us filled, the beams sagged and the door wouldn’t close. Yikes.
As bad as it was, our enthusiasm could not be dampened. We borrowed equipment from the local restaurant, brightened up the space, scrubbed it clean as best we could, and then we held our breath as we waited for the health inspector. Amazingly, we passed, and we were on our way to opening our first food stand.
That was just the beginning. We were wildly successful, for several reasons. None of those reasons is because I was such an amazing cook.
First, I was a teacher, and so all my students, their siblings, and their parents happily supported us. They would rather buy food, it turned out, from someone they knew and trusted.
Second, we found that the carnies, who are the people who run with the show and operate the rides, games, and food “joints,” loved that we opened early for breakfast, closed late so they could eat after the show closed, and served real meals as well as fast food.
Finally, our success came from the fact that our portions were large, and our prices were low. For instance, a meatloaf dinner complete with mashed potatoes, gravy, veggie, and roll, was 5.00. And that included a canned soda!
So these three factors led to our success, and for the next 35 years we continued to serve the fair’s population each August.
However, for us, after that first year, when the fair closed and the carnival moved on, we felt left behind. We had made friends, we had made money, and we had had a heck of a good time.
So after a couple of seasons, we did what any entrepreneur would do: we bought a trailer and went on the road. Our first rig was old and junky, but we made it work. We found a tent and set it up in front of the trailer. We set up a grill and fryer under the tent, and used the trailer for storage as well as for sleeping.
Things were different in the 80s.
After a couple of years, we started a family and gave up traveling with the show. We had to be satisfied to wave goodbye as our friends and customers hit the road.
That all changed in the late 80s, when we went on a family vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. During that week in April, we visited the Outback Steakhouse, and that’s when we first were introduced to the product that would change everything.
What most people don’t understand is that, in order to go on the road and be admitted to fairs, you had to have a unique product. It had to be massively profitable as well as to be something that the fairs didn’t already have.
For us, that product was the Blooming Onion, also known as the Awesome Blossom. It cost us .50 to make, and we sold it for 5.00, which is a massive 10x profit. It was easy to prepare and took very few ingredients. And it was truly unique. When we applied to fair committees that spring, they were thrilled to learn about this new food, and we booked every fair to which we applied.
Within a year, we had bookings for 18 events. Our girls were old enough to work with us, and they became excellent at taking orders and keeping the customers happy and smiling.
I kept my teaching job, and in the fall my husband was able to hire a helper for the slower weekdays. The girls and I would arrive on Friday afternoons and often leave for home early Monday morning.
We loved it.
I am proud to say that we were the first to bring the Blooming Onion to the fair circuit in New England, and our trailer, which we purchased from the side of the road, nearly new, is still on that circuit.
Over the years, we also ran a shaved ice trailer, a soup-in-a-bun stand, and a Mexican food booth. They were all successful, but nothing beat the onion trailer.
Today, I help others find success in the concession stand and food truck industry. Some things have changed, but the basics remain the same. Finding a product with excellent profit potential, making something yummy, and running an appealing stand are still the important factors.
I’m not bragging when I say that I made more money in 18 weeks on the fair circuit than I did for a year of teaching school. I’m merely trying to impress upon those who might consider this type of business that it’s extremely lucrative, and it’s so much fun!
Ready to Start Your Own Food Business Adventure?
Whether you dream of slinging burgers at the county fair or hitting the road in a food truck, I’ve got the resources to help you get started right.
🔥 — Guide to Building Your Fair & Event Food Business
Learn how I turned fair food into serious income — and how you can do it too.
🚚 — Guide to Building Your Mobile Food Business
From permits to profits, this course covers everything you need to launch and grow a food truck biz.
🎁 — Free checklists, guides & more
Start planning your mobile food journey with free tools and resources designed just for aspiring foodpreneurs.
👉 Visit and start building the food business of your dreams today!
