Chasing a vision

Relationships

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she thought it passed her by.

“I come from a place of business. My dad had a store for 30 years when I grew up. You see things from parents and then you want to do it the same. All my siblings have business – my brother has a big store, my other brother has a hardware store and my sister, she does also cooking like me. “ She always wanted the same, but “I thought that train went by. We never could afford it or we couldn’t do it. I thought, oh well.

“But now opportunity came and just happened that we could do it.”

Room to work

A year later they bought the ice cream business.

At that point everything was running smoothly a far as demand and customers were concerned, but they were pressed for space, with little room to cook, store food, and maneuver around each other in the 16-foot food truck. As well, they needed to made some upgrades, but questioned whether it was worth putting money into the old food truck.

During their second winter, Greta and John decided to invest once more, this time in expanding the operation. “We said if we have to do something, then we might as well start from fresh. We would buy a container, build it out and then throw the other one away.”

They sold the food truck, replacing it with a black 40-foot-long shipping container. In behind, and connected by a deck, is a smaller, 25-foot container where they now store many of the ingredients and supplies.

They did much of the work themselves, but there were some challenges with building out the containers. There were some installation issues (especially with the heavy, commercial range hood), a few expensive contractors, and supplier delays experienced by many in recent years, but “we got through it.”

The new setup includes a porch off the front, with a roof and some eating space, so dining in the rain is possible. As well, large picnic tables with umbrellas ran along the front of the business for customers who wanted to “dine in.”

Even with all the extra space, Greta noted that they still had to make two supply runs each week, as they could only store enough food and supplies for a couple days at a time.

She laughed, as John was a truck driver, and on his days off he was now her truck driver, running around to all the suppliers to restock the kitchen.

Menu expands with location

The extra room afforded Greta and her staff room to work around each other comfortably, but also with more room to cook, she could expand the menu, and bring the ice cream into the same building.

“Before we had only traditional ground beef tacos. Now we have three more different pork tacos – al pastor, barbacoa and smoke.”

The taco stand offers the hand-held favourites, as well as tortas, tortilla soup, fries, nachos and burritos. They also started offering breakfast on Saturday mornings. On the sweet end of the container, Greta’s Swirls, offers ice cream, churros and pies.

Greta said she liked the soup the most, but that everything is really good. “The other day I said to my husband, I cannot even really pick out which one I would let go from the menu. I like everything that I have here.”

The concept of “Taco Tuesdays” rings true, as Greta says that Tuesday is one of their busier days each week, along with Friday and Saturday.

They are often busy and have served over 200 orders in a day. But she doesn’t stress about it because she has a great team working there.

The staff, of around seven, all have special capabilities: cooking, running the till, operating the fryer, assembling tacos, serving ice cream, cleaning. And they all work well together. “There are good friends together. It’s just very nice.”

The biggest test was when Greta and John went to a cottage for a week this summer. “They did not even call once.”

She was so pleased, “The taco wagon was running itself. I heard after that one day they were crazy busy and just handled it. Having a team like that, that’s amazing.”

Her own boss

Learning which tasks she wanted to continue doing herself and when to get help was one of the new things she was learning to balance as her own boss. “Before I would clean my ice cream machine myself, I would make the pie myself. I would do all that.” And now she could rely on her staff to do many of those tasks, allowing Greta to focus on the things she enjoyed the most, the cooking of specialty meats or soups.

“There’s a cleaner coming every day now, she does all the dishes, wipes down all the ovens. Oh, that’s nice to have. That’s the stuff that if it all falls on your shoulders, it makes so hard to want to come to work excited each day when you do so many other things too. It’s important to be happy about work every day.”

The work was worth it, “We finally got the dream. I thought what I always wanted would never happen, but now it has.”

There was a newfound freedom to ownership. “I always worked for somebody else for so many years. I work very hard and now I can work for myself. That is the greatest reward.”

She’s spending her time doing what she enjoys. “I’m always here and even though I don’t have to be. It’s where I want to be.”

Greta and John have four children – two girls and two boys –and seven grandchildren. Her one daughter was worried, “She says our kids will have no grandma now, it’s way too busy.”

But Greta said family always comes first. “When they come

Maggie Neufeld prepares a taco with all the fixings. During growing season, many of the vegetables are locally sourced, and Greta says the food is “as local as we can make it – the peppers are from the field, the eggs are farm fresh.” visit, I sit with them and eat with them or snack with them. I always make the time when they’re here.”

She said it’s been a delight to run the Taco Wagon and have them come visit.

After two years of investment, Greta is pleased with the business and her team, but said she’s always thinking over ways to improve, and mulling over options for the winter months – a side effect of owning her own business.

She said John helps to remind her to take some time away, “he said we need the wintertime to relax. ‘You’re so busy you need to have a little rest.’” She laughed saying that might be true.

Greta’s Taco Wagon is open seasonally typically from late spring to early fall, and operates for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday, with breakfast available on Saturdays. The ice cream shop is open from 11-9 on those days.

Susie Fehr prepared a soft-serve ice cream cone, which she said was, “an interesting skill to learn. My first time doing it wasn’t this nice. Making the swirls even requires practise.” She really enjoyed working in that part of the business, “You should see the kids’ eyes when they see the sprinkles – their eyes pop open!” Seen enjoying a perfectly-swirled cone is Kaiya Pheap, with help from father David, who had driven from St. Thomas for a treat.