Thrifty Thursday<\/a> (after 5 p.m. for the evening discount), when food prices for some big items are reduced. <\/p>\n\u201cWe have cheaper options, cheaper prices; they\u2019re [the state fair] focusing on it more,\u201d Justin says.<\/p>\n
Justin takes the current economic mood to heart, as well. He adjusted the ingredients of a new drink after realizing the specific lemons he wanted to import would cost too much. \u201cI was like, \u2018You know what? I don\u2019t know if this makes sense since we\u2019re on value this year.’\u201d<\/p>\n
The biggest challenge of all: staffing<\/p>\n
Staffing is one of the greatest challenges for all vendors. Good workers already have jobs. And this gig runs only 24 days, with really long, hot days (12 hours) and an unstoppable crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the more challenging thing is not that you have workers that are ready to work; it\u2019s trying to identify the ones that have that experience for this type of work,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is different work out here.\u201d<\/p>\n
His pregame speech leans into it. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, I\u2019ll have a staff meeting, and we\u2019ll get all the people out here, and I will tell them upfront, I go, \u2018The likelihood is that at the end of the fair, 50% of you will not even be working with us.\u2019 They\u2019ll quit,\u201d he says with an I-can\u2019t-blame-them shrug and a smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say they\u2019re ready for those lines and all that, but it\u2019s just not for everybody. Some people love it because time goes by fast, they\u2019re busy, but there are people who are like, \u2018I can\u2019t do this,’\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
The truth about a Big Tex Choice Award<\/p>\n
Fiesta Concessions has won five Big Tex Choice Awards, including the fried Thanksgiving dinner, Dominican hot dog and a cotton candy taco.<\/p>\n
But things, he says, are different now with the food awards because the food craze has expanded beyond the fairgrounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack in the day, it was only eight entries, and you didn\u2019t have everybody from the Texas Rangers to the Cowboys to all these other venues coming up with creative foods. We were the only game in town. And that\u2019s where people are like, \u2018If you want something crazy, you go to the State Fair Texas.\u2019 Now it seems a little bit more common,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
There are even entire restaurants dedicated to just crazy foods. <\/p>\n
Back when they won for fried Thanksgiving dinner, the line was \u201cout of control.\u201d The impact on the bottom line was nice. But now, the winners\u2019 lines are more manageable. There are just so many over-the-top creations; fairgoers have more choices. <\/p>\n
He also points out that winning one of those early Big Tex Choice Awards had legs: it wasn\u2019t just a one-year deal. For instance, the fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which won in 2005, is a legend in fried fair foods. Fried Jesus, aka Abel Gonzales, told us last year<\/a> that in a good year, they still sell 20,000 over the three weeks. Aside from being this food editor\u2019s personal favorite, it\u2019s still sought after. \u201cBut who won two years ago?\u201d he asks rhetorically. (Well, his Dominican dog did.)<\/p>\nThe newer winners just don\u2019t have the legs like in the old days. <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, \u2018Oh my gosh, this is going to be around forever.\u2019 Next year comes, they want to know what the newest stuff is,\u201d he says. \u201cYes, you\u2019ll have some people that are like, \u2018Oh my God, I love that.\u2019 But it falls off a cliff for most of our items. I\u2019d say 90%. Fried Thanksgiving dinner \u2014 we won in 2015 with that one, I think. That one has actually stuck around, and we took it off the menu last year at Trio and people were like, \u2018Why did you guys take that off the menu?\u2019 So we\u2019re bringing it back this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
That actually sounds amazing right now. I\u2019ll have to try it: on a Thursday after 5 p.m., because that\u2019s how the locals do the fair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justin Martinez grew up at Fair Park. His father started Fiesta Concessions 40 years ago. Each fall, Justin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,918,368],"class_list":["post-445140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-economy","tag-state-fair-of-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}