Guilty in Gilroy

August 2013

“I’ll take two burgers, chicken nuggets, and two large fries, a large Coke, milk, and oh, can you get me a few more of those deep-fried donut things? They were so good last time.” I struggled to hear the cute young twenty-something mom as she juggled a whining two-year-old and a babbling baby in a stroller.

I smiled. “Coming right up, the Hump Day special.” I asked my sister-in-law, Kara, “Did you get all that?”

She ran to the freezer, then the fridge to get the food to throw on the grill and in the deep fryers. “Yup, I’m on it.”

This had been pretty much how our lunch rushes had gone since we opened the doors to our first food truck a few weeks ago. ‘Miranda’s Mysterious Musings’ had been painted on the outside, and even though it didn’t sound much like a food truck, it seemed to work.

Our first temporary location in Gilroy, California, a few miles from our house near Coyote Lake, was on Murray Avenue, bordering San Ysidro Park. Per the very specific requirements of Gilroy regulation, we needed access to restrooms, so their park system had been perfect for our food truck locations. Plus, a temporary permit lasted only thirty days, so we would need to move from one park to another since they did not allow extensions on any permit. Needing to reapply for a new permit every thirty days was sort of a pain, but we were learning to live within our regulatory environment. We were thankful that there were many requirements—such as liability insurance, business licenses, and the filing of numerous policies and procedures with the city—that Gilroy didn’t require, which other municipalities, such as Monterey, did.

Gilroy, a modest city of 60,000, famous for its annual Garlic Festival, proved to be the perfect place to start our food truck business. While it took a few days, our business had already taken off through word-of-mouth advertising alone. We had more than doubled our volume every day since we started. Our goal had been to gross $5,000 per week, and we were already running nearly half that based on today’s volume—assuming we could keep it up. Although, based on the amount of physical labor involved, the $500 we had grossed so far today didn’t seem like all that much.

I laid on the table while she wielded the adding machine, which impressed me. “Hey, how did you learn how to operate one of those things?”

She laughed as I untied my hair and let it fall over my shoulders. “Miranda, you remember, I told you during our jail stay that I had been a bookkeeper before I joined the Army.”

I thought back. “Hmm, I don’t think so. I think I would have remembered that. Why do we need Tea if you are an accountant?”

She scoffed, “Oh, I’m far from an accountant. Besides, she really adds a creative flair to our team. I can’t wait to get to know her better. When’s she quitting her job at Ion anyway?”

I thought back to my last conversation with her. “Well, she’s given me a couple of answers. When we first talked about it, she said she wanted to do it immediately because Martha drove her crazy, but then I think Beau might have encouraged her to stay until we stabilized the food truck business a little. We should give her a call on speaker. Want to?”