5th March 2013

5^th March 2013

Finally, the day we have all been waiting for, the infamous UCT Postgrad Entrepreneurship Cake Sale 2013. Dean and Shea had spent the night camping on the Jammie Plaza with no more than a sleeping bag, 4 tables, a trailer, a fridge and a whole of GEES. The day started at approximately 5:30 am with the arrival of Kim who was all too eager to wake Shea and Dean and get the day started. Kim, Dean and Shea began to manoeuvre the tables and fridge into place. Soon after, the whole team arrived with our fresh ingredients and all the extra necessities. Monster arrived at 6:15 am and help set up two large gazebo’s, flags, two fridges, a serving bar as well as supply our group with 42 cases of the most potent energy drink known to man. After Monster had left, our team Banner “Burger Boss” was put up and a solid supply of electricity was established. In order to create more awareness of our sponsors (Woolworths and Pesto Princess), Sarah went to the library and printed out various logo’s of which we hung around our stand. The grill was fired and up and the food preparing began.

The morning got off to a very slow start with most students not interested in eating early in the morning. However our team did manage to attract one or two hangover students for a much needed energy drink and Egg +Beacon Roll. The energy drink proved to be a huge hit as most students were eager to kick start their day with a Monster (kick in the face). Professional chef Oliver Swart arrived late morning and was insistent on making the first burger to show our team what a ‘good burger’ looks like. Before we knew it, a flood of students descended on our stand. This first wave made us realized what was yet to come and we started preparing for the next wave by prepping as many of the burgers as we could. Dean was in charge of getting as many customers as possible and did so by wearing a luminous orange one-piece jump suit (aka a morph Suit) and holding up a sign showing the incredible deal on offer. Considering our team made a ridiculous amount of money, i think he did a pretty good job (and he definitely did not write this blog). Everyone in the team seemed to have a job to do at all times:

Dean – Marketing and Ice-cream machine operator

Shea – Serving burgers

Kim – Serving burgers and prepping burgers

Sam- prepping burgers

Teboho – prepping burgers

Murray – Operating the grill

Sarah – Till lady

The lunch time wave of students (aka the plague) started at approximately 11:45. The shear mass of students was violently unpredicted by our team and we soon found our stand under siege. The burgers were prepped, however the grill could not quite keep up with the rate of production and in the future it would be suggested to obtain two grills. The lunch time rush was going well until out team began to sun out of supplies such as: ice, rolls, tomatoes, onions. In order to solve this problem, Sarah and Murray were instructed to make a one or two “supply runs”. Our ‘supply runs’ were well in advance and our stand never ran out of stock. The lunch time rush continued till about 2:30 pm, off which were the most stressful 2 hours and 45mins of our lives. The grill master, Murray, went through a number of forearm spasms, from flipping burger like a boss, and had to be put on a permanent Monster drip. Students can smell a good deal and today was no exception; the Burger Boss’s (our stand) line was outrageously long and might’ve resulted in our team losing a few costumers. There are viscous rumours going around the Burger Boss’s line was longer than the Zimbabwe general election line... but these are only rumours.

As the day came to an end, the number started to dwindle and our Monster supply was completely demolished. Due to the fact that we had no more Monsters for our special deal, we decided to drop the burger price from R20 to R10. Our stand managed to squeeze out a couple of burger before calling it quits. Overall, the day was very successful with Burger Boss selling close to 920 burgers. Burger Boss did itself proud and looks forward to the next Cake Sale where we can implement all that we have learnt from the first Sale.