Food Truck Fun with Pours & Petals
Food Truck Fun with Pours & Petals
By Kathi Caldwell-Hopper
You might’ve seen the cute green and white vintage style food truck around the Lakes Region this summer. If you stopped to check it out on a hot summer’s day, you likely couldn’t resist ordering a refreshing drink made by the owner of the truck, Erin Doonan.
That eye-catching truck is called Pours & Petals and it is unique, offering hot and cold beverages, cider donuts, cookies and other treats…and also fresh garden flowers from Winnipesaukee Woods Farm. (Thus the name Pours & Petals.)
Lemonade from Pours & Petals.
“I opened the business on Memorial Day weekend of this year,” Erin says as she sets up on a recent summer morning in Meredith by Hermit Woods Winery & Deli (on Main Street). “It has gone very well this season, and I set up at various locations each week.”
Erin’s food truck has gained a following at the locations where she can be found each week. Should a customer want morning Wayfarer coffee, she has iced or hot coffee, and also Cider Bellies Doughnuts, which are very popular. There are also chocolate chip cookies and other snacks, including fresh berry parfait bowls, and summer salad.
Those who order coffee can choose hot or nitro cold brew iced coffee. And then there is the lemonade, handcrafted and popular on a hot summer’s day. You can choose plain lemonade, or add on natural flavors, such as blueberry lavender, cherry, strawberry, raspberry lime, blackberry mint, mixed berry, honey rose, strawberry basil, pomegranate, orange, green tea or black tea lemonade. Other iced drinks include iced chai, sweet or unsweetened tea, or green tea among others.
Why so many iced drinks, one might ask? Erin smiles as she explains, “I like iced beverages and I wanted to offer a menu that had things I have come to love. I drink iced coffee and I have made my own lemonade since I was a teenager.” (As a teen, Erin worked in the food service industry at an ice cream stand.)
Pours & Petals started when Erin and her boyfriend took on the ambitious project of renovating a 14-foot long 1960 Coleman Woodman camper. She found the camper online and once purchased, Erin decided to gut the vehicle.
Pours & Petals food truck in Meredith by Hermit Woods Winery.
“I chose this particular camper because it is the perfect length,” she says. “And it is light weight at about 1,400 pounds.” Erin did not want a vehicle that would be too bulky to drive and she can manage the food truck, although it was a learning curve.
It had been used by the previous owner as a camper, and Erin found it when browsing on Craigslist. “We stripped it to the bare bones and replaced everything,” she explained.
In order for the truck to be a fully-functional kitchen, it was necessary for Erin to do a lot of research for food requirements and codes. She learned that the process of creating her own food truck would not be a straight-forward effort.
“It took eight months to renovate it and it sat in our driveway during the renovation,” she recalls. Not surprisingly, there was some water damage to the camper due to its age, and Erin was very thorough in gutting it and putting plywood on the interior walls and then adding a light tin back splash which makes the interior very bright and cheerful. They also did rewiring and added new custom Pella windows. (Some of the original 1960 windows remain as well.) The food truck has commercial refrigeration and four-tap kegerator for drinks.
The result, when finished, is an eye-catching and charming food truck with the Pours & Petals logo on the exterior. The truck is cream and green colored; the green sticker wrap was added by a graphics company. At one end of the truck, there are flower holders so Erin can offer bouquets of fresh flowers from Winnipesaukee Woods Farm.
Once renovated, it was time to take the food truck, with its tasty menu and bouquets of fresh flowers, on the road. Erin says she has received nothing but great and enthusiastic comments from the public. Indeed, how can anyone resist stopping at the truck and smiling when seeing the menu, the flowers and the cheerful exterior of Pours & Petals?
Erin says the positive reception from customers pushes her to keep moving forward, because operating the food truck is a 24/7 business. “I just love the good reaction I have had!” she adds.
Originally from Massachusetts, Erin and her family spent many summers in the Lakes Region, and her love of the area is why she settled here permanently. After high school, she moved to the Lakes Region full-time and she has been here for six years now.
“I have a passion for event management,” she explains. “I always knew I wanted to do something with food and events.” It seems unlikely she dreamed of owning and operating a busy food truck, but the unique and fun business fits the bill for Erin and has offered something wonderful for the area.
Now that Pours & Petals is off and running, Erin is moving forward with private events and weddings. She says she can customize the truck for each customer’s needs, such as offering lemonade and a dessert service for an evening event, and for a morning gathering, coffee and pastries.
Erin Doonan with her 1960 vintage food truck, Pours & Petals.
She also offers personalized catering with access to a full kitchen service and has taken on food requests for private events. The ability to sell flowers will add something extra to an event. Customers can hire the food truck for bachelorette parties, weddings, rehearsal dinners and business opening events, as well as neighborhood parties. One can only imagine how fun and popular the food truck will be at a wedding or party.
As we head into the autumn, Erin will be altering the menu to offer hot cider and hot chocolate, among other warming goodies for chillier weather. She also hopes to be at winter festivals and holiday events, and is currently looking at winterizing the food truck.
Pours & Petals can be found at Hermit Woods Winery in Meredith, Gilford Country Store on Lake Shore Road in Gilford and other locations weekly, with her schedule posted on her social media and at www.poursandpetalsevents.com.
Her future goals for next year will be to continue to attend local farmers markets and craft fairs, as well offering personalized, private event services. This seems a sensible plan in the warm summer months when shoppers at these markets become hot and thirsty outdoors.
Should you spot a charming vintage white and green food truck with flowers for sale, as well as a cheerful young woman serving customers who are ordering cooling lemonade or warm morning coffee, you have found Erin and Pours & Petals!
For information about the food truck, email erin@poursandpetalsevents.com or visit www.poursandpetalsevents.com.