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May 31, 2004. Have moved the concession trailer to Franklin, NC, home! I had talked to the owner of the Franklin Flea Market and arranged to park the trailer with a for sale sign on it at his typical rate of $5 per week. Thought I'd try that for a while. I have asked the owner previously about setting up and selling bbq. His answer was what was to be expected...that any hot food vending would conflict with the already existing concession that sell hot dogs, drinks, ice cream, etc. And...it is his daughter that runs the concession. He came around to see me today to make comments about the trailer and during that conversation he gave permission to set the trailer up for business anytime his concession wasn't open. I think she is open Friday though Sunday until about 4PM.

Perhaps I'll open again if possible, per the health department, but only for a couple of hours for only a couple of days. If my bbq is really good and better than the 2 other very commercialized joints in town then maybe we can create something worth while. There is a tremendous amount of tourist traffic all over this town all week long throughout the summer and again during the "leaf" season. Also the Flea is located on a main highway that is the in and out of town for the very exclusive town of Highlands, NC, which is a very twisty drive to an altitude of just under 5000 feet. Highlands is where the population in the summer is about 20,000 and the winter about 600! From way back in the early century Floridians and many folks from Atlanta and all over the south own 2nd homes. There are even art auctions several times during any summer week and fantastic restaurants that their owners open seasonally their and the seasonally in south Florida, usually very exclusive!

The next step will be to talk to the health department which I'll try to get to tomorrow. What I am going to do is see if there is a possibility to waver having to be attached to a commissary. It seems that since I have cold storage in my trailer and if I am attached to the power company that I can provide a safe haven for all my foods. The gray water and fresh water will have to be transported by a caddy to the flea market to be dumped and the water via a hose to the trailer. The tanks, water is 65 gallons and gray is 75 gallons, are large enough to last about 2 days when I have cooked a lot and washed more pots and pans than normal.

So...here we are again...perhaps getting ready to open a bbq stand again! I'll have a lot of good and positive help from many experienced friends that know the restaurant and other types of businesses this time should I decide to open.

I'll try to write on the happenings at least once a week for now and more as things gain momentum!

May 19, 2004. One of the problems I had encountered cooking and running a restaurant is taste and smell. Nasal polyps became a problem way back around 1985. I had them removed but they soon grew back and again blocked my smell sensors. The good thing was that I could breath through my nose, before the removal they were totally blocked. There were many times while running the bbq stand that I needed to know if food needed to be thrown out. I am pretty sure I threw out some food prematurely because no one I could depend on as a taster was around.

When I finally closed down and began the move to Franklin, NC, friend JOe, family, and I fired up the Cajun Grill. We grilled steaks and St. Louis style spare ribs. On half the ribs we used Bad Byron's Butt Rub and the other half of the racks we used Cap'n Pete's BBQ Sauce. JOe noticed that the sauce didn't taste like he remembered. After thinking out what I may have changed or forgotten in the recipe for the last batch I came up with the answer. The original recipe, which made about a quart, called for a medium shredded onion. For bottling, health safety, convenience, and large batches, I had been using dehydrated minced onion. As most cooks we are always looking for a better taste among other things. So for the last 2 batches of sauce I decided to work a little harder for a better product and didn't add the dehydrated onion as usual. Usually I would add all the liquid ingredients and spices to a large pot including the dehydrated onion and just let the onion hydrate as I cooked the sauce. I would bring all these ingredients to almost a boil, or usually hot enough to melt the blocks of real butter. Then turn the stove down to 1 notch above low and add the burnable ketchup and brown sugar. Now I would have to stir about once every 30-40 minutes but would get very little burning of the sugars. This time I hydrated the onion as per the instructions on the container which was to add at least as much water as twice the onions. Now read this part very carefully and see if you can catch a mistake. After the onion was hydrated I would pour off the excess water and add the onion to the pot. That's it! That was the last thing I would do after adding everything else. JOe stated that besides the original taste being noticeably different that also it was closer to a vinegar based sauce! Number one I threw out all the onion juices and flavors and secondly probably the vinegar, lemon, and other liquids were somewhat absorbed into the onion. What this may have caused is unknown to us but I want to put it this way...the original procedure for making the batch sauce was an invention by accident!!!

Because the sauce is another kind I took the shopping cart order button off of the sauce page. The plan is to make another batch of sauce asap but I am split apart in two places with my belongings and my kitchen. I am setting up a kitchen to make the sauce at this time and should be back into production probably by early next week.

The concession trailer is back on eBay as item #3816859357. The price has been reduced...I am getting anxious to sell it. It can easily be used as anything else besides barbeque. As a matter of fact I hope whomever may be interested in the trailer doesn't want the FE100 smoker because I would really like to keep it!

Last Friday I went to Cornelia to get all I need to make the sauce. While there a friend of the guy I made a deal with to remove the deck and get the trailer of the blocks drove up with a rather large wrecker! It took him all of 2 hours, all by his self, in the hot of the day, to have the trailer on the ground, moved into position for me to easily hook to it, and had the anchors pulled out of the ground. He is planning to bring a "roll back" wrecker to put the deck on. I'm not sure if they'll pull the deck out or cut the legs off, they're problem not mine as long as the lot is clean of everything when they are done before the end of the month as per our verbal contract.

Yesterday I worked all the afternoon getting the RV trailer leveled. I blocked under the axles and the tongue for now. My arms were hurting when I started and today I am going to have to rest them before I start to work on getting the electrical to it. On the low side of the hill the tires are more than 15 inches above ground! It looks kinda scary but it appears to be stable.

May 17, 2004. Ok I lied, I didn't come back tomorrow and fill you in on updates, and I still am not going to. I am hurting so much all over I can hardly hold my arms up without pain. Last week I moved my RV to Franklin and last Friday I began to get the concession trailer ready to move and pickup tools and ingredients to make another batch of bbq sauce. The trailer is off of its anchors and blocks and ready to be hitched up and moved to Franklin, that is when I find something to pull it. There are 25 forty pound bags of hickory pellets now inside on the floor, do the math...an extra 1000 pounds to pull! I have now just been able to get back on the Internet to retrieve my email and get to my web sites. I'll fill you in later! Time to rest my aching body.

May 9, 2004. The shopping cart has been temporarily closed. There is a very lengthy reason that I'll elaborate on perhaps tomorrow. Presently I'm in Franklin, NC and am using friend JOe's computer. It's difficult to maneuver on someone else's machine. I'll have mine setup soon. I have moved myself and the RV to Franklin. The bbq stand is still in Cornelia.

May 6, 2004. There is much going on but I'll have to make this short. I'm spent! I'm so exhausted, mentally, from working about 15 hours a day, plus, on this computer trying to get the bbq sauce shopping cart installed. I need to begin to generate some sort of an income! So you folks that like to try sauces please go to Captain Pete's Olde Tyme BBQ shopping cart and puh-leeez make a purchase. It has had great reviews for the past 45 years!

The shopping cart is there now and it's working, well not exactly! I'm not worried about it's appearance at this time, I'll play with that for the fun times. But at this time you should only order one jar at a time due to how the shipping is set up. As it is presently I am adding a charge for my cost of packaging materials, I think others refer to this as handling. The problem is that I can not figure how to add different costs for materials when the order has a quantity whereas the larger shipping container will only costs a bit more.

If anyone knows about the Agora Cart and has knowledge of how to do it...please fill me in!

Nothing has started on the removal of the concession trailer yet, however the person doing it should be starting any day, probably Sunday. No bids yet but a few phone calls. eBay item # 3813645458. If it sells, great, if it doesn't then that'll be okay too except that my living conditions will be a bit inconvenient for a while!

May 3, 2004. There have been some requests lately for my bbq sauce. I thought you all were just wanting the sauce to help keep the bbq sand going. I didn't realize there may really be a market for sauce. I see them all over the web but I never really thought it was a profitable business. It seemed like you'd have to have a contract from someone like Sam's Club. That would be killer, wouldn't it? I'll work on getting the shipping thing figured out and get that going as soon as possible. Probably it should be complete sometime this week if I can get all the information I need. The problem now is I want to be fair and right on the shipping. The handling is really fixed depending on how many jars an order is, that will dictate which box and how much packing to use. For now I'll research that for an order of 1 through 4 jars. The USPS sent me a web site kit for setting up the shipping where the customer only has to know how many jars he wants and his zip code. The USPS warned you need to have advanced computer savvy to use their programs. Well they weren't kidding one bit. I'm not a programmer and I believe that is who they were referring to. UPS looks easier and even just 1 jar will be right at 2 pounds so that'll probably be the way to go. As soon as I get that worked out I'll announce on here and on the bbq sauce page that we are now shipping!

I calculate I can make a clear profit of $200 a day bottling the sauce myself, that is not including labor! That's a good full days work with the equipment I presently own. But I am sure it'll be quite a while, if ever, that I'll need to produce that much. I'm willing though. So today I'll get right on it and see what I can accomplish.

Been working just about all day on the sauce page. I'm getting there little by little and learning more about this HTML stuff. You can find a new link "Test Link" on the sauce page right below the picture. Some of it works but I have a lot of work to do.

May 2, 2004. Just put the trailer on eBay, it is item # 3813645458.

Have also added some additional history in 2002 and January and March of 2003. I still think there is more lost. I need to do a bit of editing on those new pages.

May 1, 2004. The landlord came by yesterday to discuss our future. We both agreed that I owe him for April. His idea was that since I am not making any money that he'll just charge a storage fee of $100 per month and give me 90 days to move everything off the lot. I had only planned to try and sell it for 30 days where it sits but thinking more about it I'd rather have it nearby me. Franklin, NC is about 70 miles north so I wouldn't consider that nearby. I have a place to put it there for sure but there wouldn't be much exposure to traffic. There is a possibility of parking the concession trailer next to a flea market but that hasn't been sorted out yet. I'll continue to live in the RV next to the concession trailer until it is ready to be moved.

Now I have to do the break down. A young man I know owes a bit to me on a deal we made a while back. He wants the deck! So we have made a fair deal for both of us. He'll bring the trailer back on the ground on its wheels and remove everything else like the deck, anchors, skirting, etc. except for what I want to keep. When he is done he'll have moved the trailer to a convenient location on the lot to hook up and go! The only thing is, he going to do it a few hours after he gets home each day plus weekends. We're thinking it'll take less than 2 weeks. I'm getting anxious to get moved to Franklin and get on with a new chapter in my life.

Tomorrow I will take new picture for eBay and will change some of the ones on these pages.

I'm asking $34,800...the coke machine doesn't go with it, almost everything else does. I'll deduct a fair price if the buyer doesn't want the FE100 smoker. I hope they don't, I really want to keep it!