It's 8:45 am and I'm at Holey Rollers coffee shop in Oklahoma City's Paseo District. It's a nice little coffee shop. Turns out they share a space with Literati Press, which I've followed on social media for years, but never actually visited.
In one hour, we'll be arriving at Bleu Garten for what we anticipate will be a monstrous day of slinging empanadas, bacon bombs and cuban sandwiches.
The last time Masa was here, we broke a record. That was in March. It was a nice day, but it turned cool and windy as the night progressed. We staggered out of the truck in awe of what had happened.
Today, today, is set up to be an absolutely beautiful day with temperatures in the mid 80s. It's also Cinco de Mayo. I hear there will be a Mariachi band on hand. Empanadas aren't Mexican, but it will be the closest thing to a taco customers can get today. (We always get asked if we have Tacos. We don't.)
We're going to get our asses kicked.
Just two of us in the truck taking orders and cooking them. Managing a bunch of multi-colored empanadas cooking in the fryer. There's also the sandwich press and the bacon bomb fryer. Oh, and there's the line out the window of people waiting to order. Then there's those who have ordered and hover around us like a flock of vultures just waiting for us to die. (Wait, is it a flock of vultures? I'm not taking the time to Google it.)
We hope we have enough sauces poured (we don't) that we don't have to deal with it until that one window of opportunity opens when you get about 15 minutes to breath.
Don't get me wrong, I love interacting with the hundreds of people who come to our window. I've met a lot of very friendly folks. For some reason once the sun drops, they can get even friendlier. There's also those who become hangry around midnight and want all the empanadas. (OK, there's also some of those in the late afternoon and they can be considered more dangerous than the nocturnal bunch.)
For 14 hours we're going to be making a lot of people happy. We're going to have repeat customers. There's always that person who orders two bacon bombs and then comes back for more. Last night, we had two families come back three times for empanadas and bombs.
I should probably mention I'm excited about all of this. It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a lot of work, and I'm going to be really sore when we close the window. I'm going to be in disbelief on how they day went. I'm going to laugh about having to return tomorrow to do it all over again.
OK, 9:25, which means it's time to go.
See you on the other side.
