Street Food Stories: Wrap Ninjas Street Food

A part of Dad What Cooks is about following my journey as a food blogger. Being a blogger requires keeping up to date with the food industry and I’m always keen to hear about where other people started with their businesses. I’ve long been interested in both food and supporting local businesses and so learning about Wrap Ninjas Street Food gave me the opportunity to combine the two and reach out to the founder - Rob Fenton - for a chat about how he got into running a street food business.

Contents

• Introducing Wrap Ninjas Street Food
• The beginnings of Wrap Ninjas
• Street food experience
• Starting up a street food business
• Onwards and upwards
• What is life like being a street food vendor?
• Developing a solid menu
• Final thoughts
• More Foodie Posts...
• Your Comments

Introducing Wrap Ninjas Street Food

Wrap Ninjas Street Food is a Lancaster based street food outlet serving gourmet wraps (“proper wraps” – more on that later) in and around the north west. Trading for around 3 years, I learn about Robs journey from university to business owner, and everything in between.

The beginnings of Wrap Ninjas

Rob has been running Wrap Ninjas since 2021 but prior to being in the food service industry he has quite the story. Having left university with an IT related course he began his career with an office job doing admin and marketing pieces. Further on from that he moved into event management and was working in the ‘non food’ sector for around 18 years.

Various roles in business schools, charity, and commercial settings required five days a week in the office (all pre-COVID, of course). These roles paid the bills and provided foundational business skills, but there was always an entrepreneurial pull.

Keeping an eye out for potential opportunity is a really important skill to have.

Rob Fenton - Wrap Ninjas

Rob had a leap of faith and took a sabbatical from the office job to take a job as a chef for 3 months, running a small in a kitchen in the French Alps. If you like food and travel and someone offers this then surely it must be a sign? As this was the summer months and out of peak ski season it was an ideal opportunity to test the water and see if the food industry was for him.  While working 6 days a week over split shifts it was challenging but not too busy. This offered a great platform to learn about the food service industry. And with Rob’s love of mountain biking, being in the Alps give him plenty of opportunity for that too!

Rolling on a few years there were some tougher times ahead. 2020 was a difficult year including covid and a redundancy looming in his job. As it happened the redundancy fell at a time when Rob was thinking about leaving so this was yet another sign to take the leap and set up.

Street food experience

Rob knew he wanted to open a street food business. Having lived in London he could see how popular they were. When he moved back to Lancaster he knew there was opportunity and took the chance. While his career path was totally different to before, his passion for cooking gave him the drive to follow up on this.

To get experience of this new world Rob took on a job with another vendor experiencing the key skills for street food businesses such as learning about things like using a generator, serving long lines of customers and cooking on a flat grill. All the things people with four walls, a roof and a steady electricity supply take for granted. He did this for around eight months using the knowledge as a spring board for his own business.

Starting up a street food business

Following this, there were three or four months where Rob didn’t work while he set up his business Rob told me that “I was lucky to have a financial buffer from the redundancy which gave me some time to set up the business, start to build a brand and get organised to trade. While everything was new to me, it helped to have a vision of where I wanted to be. Keeping an eye out for potential opportunity is a really important skill to have.”

Onwards and upwards

6 months into starting Wrap Ninjas Rob soon realised he needed to staff up to meet demand. He noted that if he was going to do this again that he would decide on the size business to aim for and staff accordingly from the start. This is always a risk in the startup world but you have to take risks to be successful.

There were a few niches Rob wanted to look in to but wraps had always been something he’d enjoyed and got good at. Rob commented “The street food scene is experimental. People go to a restaurant for the specific food that they want. Street food is about tempting you to try something new. This spirit of innovation and experimentation is one of the things that attracted me to the street food scene.” His thinking being that the customer base of the street food market could be more adventurous and so wraps provide more options for a diverse and eclectic menu.

What is life like being a street food vendor?

Rob enjoys the comradery of the street food world. While he notes it can be competitive, there is a real sense of community. Traders will do food swaps. There is a help and support community (e.g. if your generator packed in for the day, someone will lend you a hand). This would be the thing missed the most if Rob was to ever have a bricks and mortar establishment.

The customers

Rob is certainly a people person and you have to be for this line of work. Seeing the customers and being involved, chatting and joking with them gives a great sense of satisfaction. Rob relayed a time when a customer was waiting in line looking hungry and staring. The advertising slogan is “Wrap Ninjas – Proper Wraps Big Flavours”. He was challenged by the gentleman asking “so what makes them a proper wrap?” He was told that they are good quality, tasty and fresh which Rob prides himself on. The gentleman later returned proclaiming “Fair enough mate, that was a proper wrap!”.

Editor comment - People benefit from fresh ingredients and this works well in the home. Rather than shop bought you can sometimes make your own such as my Homemade Garlic & Herb Butter recipe.

The good and bad points of running a street food business

We’ve covered the good stuff about running a street food business. But you have to take the bad that comes too. And it does. Pitch fees, bad weather, long hours, even more hours. We talked about one particular event which Rob attended in a town centre. 22 hours worked (including the food prep day) for a loss of £140. Not turning up would have made more of a profit. These are the hurdles which you must face sometimes. But you learn from them and that’s all experience.

There are events - the ideal events - where the pitch fee is low and the crowds are happy. It will be sunny and busy and people are in good spirits and patient. Long queues with patient people are a good thing!

Developing a solid menu

The menu development at Wrap Ninjas is a long process which goes through iteration. Getting the balance right of menu items is important too. The base Wrap Ninjas Street Food menu, whether it be chicken, halloumi or tofu needs to follow a strict process. It needs time to be tested properly, for example a chicken wrap might have two or three versions of sauce or a salad/coleslaw before it takes its place on the menu. Then it needs to pass two tests – Rob has to think it’s good and the customers have to agree. Word of mouth is an important advertising tool and so your menu must be top notch!

Final thoughts

I’m so pleased to have spent some time discussing the street food business with Rob, it showed me just what happens behind the scenes.

Have a look where Wrap Ninjas are popping up next by following them on Facebook or Instagram. They’re even available to hire for your next event. See the Wrap Ninjas Facebook or Instagram page for details.

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