After buying a beautiful Dutch bakfiets (box bike) one wonders, When not cycling my kids about town, how can I monetize this bit of rolling stock?
Answer: dream up a bakfiets winkelconcept (box bike shop idea).
Wandering the streets of Seattle this summer, I’d fantasized about food trucks: mobile cafes (or “roach coaches”) that sell delicious snacks and seem to appear wherever one might want a little something. At one moment in Ballard, after drinking several margaritas, I thought, Why not import that disused, weed-spouting former food truck to Utrecht? I can make tacos at the back and the kids can do homework and play Minecraft at the front.
Question now: Can I make tacos from a box bike?
Some Californian living in Antwerp who calls himself The Taco Guy is already doing it, so it must be possible.
My Business Plan
Step One: Go to Antwerp. Lurk behind market herring stall and observe The Taco Guy’s method for slotting taco making supplies plus a cooler full of Jarritos and Coronas into a box bike. Note that he has an unwieldy trike-style bike and think about acquiring a separate trailer for the drinks cooler.
Step Two: Import tortilla making machine from Mexico and install it in corner of youngest child’s bedroom.
Tortilla-making machine (Source: Tjeerd Wiersma via Wikimedia Commons)
Step Three: Determine taco-selling schedule by following the ijsfiets (ice cream bike) around town. Study university time table/bar closing times.
Step Four: Remember that I worked in a family style, volume-sales, Italian eatery in Salt Lake City from 1994 to 1997 and never want to work in food service ever again.
Step Five: Consider taco bike concept as performance art piece.
Step Six: Lease bakfiets on part-time basis to Red Banner Sister for use as propaganda bike.
A taste of Hong Kong politics right now? Read this Evan Osnos’ New Yorker comment China’s Hong Kong Mistake.
