Truck Stop: Sugar Philly

Truck Stop visited Chef Daniel Tang of Sugar Philly in University City to chat about what it takes to run his delicious dessert truck and found out that while it didn't start out so easy, it became pretty sweet.

Phrequency: How did you get into this profession?

Dan: Awesome question. I'm from New York, and I went to school at Temple.  I got a lot of scholarship to go there and I was a Political Science major. When I graduated I was like uhh what do I do? (laughs) I graduated in 2008, and it was like the worst time to graduate, so I'm thinking seriously what do I do now? Do I want to be a consultant? I never wanted to go to law school.  So what could I do? I did a lot of temp work in the city.  I had great co-workers, I had great bosses, but it didn't make me happy. 

Now, the summer before Freshman year of college I actually started baking for some friends of mine, and they really liked it. It honestly became a hobby of mine. I think all of my friends in college saw and knew that I was really good at it. They always kind of encouraged me like, 'you really should work at a restaurant', but I didn't know how to do that.  I never really took it seriously.  A year later, in May 2009, my buddy from school, John, he was like 'hey, I wanna start a business, I wanna start a food truck, but I can't cook and I know you can'. So then he talked to his friend Franklin, and then we met up around July of that year and we were all on-board by August. And, that's why I am where I am today! (laughs)

Phrequency: What's the hardest part about working on a food truck?

Dan: I think a lot of people think that it looks easy.  They look at my hours and see 12 pm-6pm or 12pm-7pm, depending on the time of year.  People just see my window open and they think I just sell stuff, but there's so much more that has to go into it. The truck itself can be a nightmare. It's like a mobile restaurant, it gets so ridiculous sometimes. Think about all of the problems that you have with your car. Your battery dies, your oil needs to be changed, and you need to get gas. You have all of the problems associated with your car, and then all of the problems associated with a restaurant. There's keeping things at the right temperature, there's having hot water so you can wash pans and be sanitary, there's cleaning, the hardest part is all of the back work that goes into it.  A lot of people look at it as "oh you're just open 12-6", but my schedule is more like 6 am-8 pm. But it's good! I like it, and it's fun.

 Phrequency: Are you doing this alone?

Dan: There are three business partners.  I'm one, then there is John and Franklin. John and Franklin are more a part of the back business end; the accounting, funding, finances.  I'm the day-to-day guy, I'm the only one that's full-time, while Franklin and John have day jobs to support the business right now. The business can only support me, but obviously the goal for the future is to have all of us be supported by this.  I'm usually the one in the truck, but I do have two interns right now.  They're in the truck with me as well.

Phrequency: So you said you were majoring in Political Science.  You went from majoring in that to baking, how did your parents react?

Dan: That's a good question.  My parents are first generation; they came from Hong Kong. I was born here.  My dad was a very typical immigrant from another country.  He worked multiple jobs, studied English, sent money back home to he could bring his whole family over. He worked in restaurants, and my parents did a lot of those kinds of jobs so that we wouldn't have to. They did it so that they could pay for college and I could go to here or do this or do that.

I think, especially in Asian families, it's like I want my kid to be a doctor, or a lawyer or an engineer"and I wasn't that. But I think that even though my parents are from Hong Kong, they're very liberal.  I think I'm really very lucky to have the parents that I do have, because I know there are kids that I've talked to in college and I'll ask them why they are an architecture major or a biology major, and they'll say 'well because my parents told me to'.  My parents were never like 'if you became a doctor that would be awesome', they were always saying 'you should do what makes you happy'.

There are two ways that you can get into the restaurant industry. Number one is working from the ground up. You become a dish-washer, and put your dues in, and work your way up.  The second way is trailing, which is like an internship, you don't get paid by you get that experience. So I said [to my family] alright, I can do either one, if you guys want me to support myself that's fine, I can try to pay for my expenses as a dishwasher, I'll do whatever it takes. And my dad was like 'no, I'm not having my son living like that, I will pay for all of your expenses, I'll pay for your rent, so you can follow something'.

Phrequency: Your dad rules!

Dan: Yeah, I'm very fortunate to have the parents that I do have.  I think my parents were okay with it because they knew I was good at it.  I think they'd love if I was a doctor or an engineer, but I don't have any interest in doing that.  Out of all of the kids in my family, my older sisters are teachers, and the third one is getting her MBA right now, so yeah she's the only successful one (laughs).  Even my sister who's getting her MBA though, she was doing consulting for awhile, and she hated her job, and when I told her about the company I wanted to work for in Philly. She told me that she hated her job, but it's always a trade-off, you can make a lot of money and hate your job, or you can do something you love to do, and sometimes not make as much. 

Phrequency: Why did you choose University City?

Dan: Well I went to Temple, John went to Drexel and Franklin went to UPenn so we kind of represent colleges in Philly.  So we're thinking what is going to be our market. Unfortunately, Philly hasn't caught up with modern food trucks and what they really could be able to do.  So we're thinking about our market, who's going to buy our food, who is it going to apply to.  Our question was, who wants desserts?  The problem in center city is that you can't have a food truck in center city. There are a lot of logistical hassles that you would have to sort out. So then we're thinking, where are a lot of food trucks?  Every college campus.  Then we're thinking, who's parents have the most income (laughs). But really, not just that.  There are so many food trucks here on this campus that do really well. 

There are also business things like price points, who can you sell to, what's your market, how educated is your target consumer in terms of food, do people know what a French macaroon is? Have people been exposed to crème brule?  We felt like we could sell at UPenn because we felt like it was a good place to start. In terms of branching out, Philly is just now starting to catch on to the whole food truck market, as far as where they can go and stuff like that. The answer to where we can go in the future is that we'll have to expand, but as far as where we are now, this is great.

Phrequency: Do you think it's a good spot for you?

Dan: Yeah I like it a lot.  Penn's known for their business school, we had these kids do a project on us.  It was an external communications audit.  They pretty much told us about customer awareness and marketing that we could do.  They found out that only 30% of kids knew who we were.  Now you could see that as a bad thing, like we failed on the marketing aspect. But the way that myself and Franklin thought about it was like, well that means that we have 70% of kids that we have not tapped into, and that is a lot of potential to grow. We were already doing well with that 30% so that could be huge, but I don't wanna think about that right now! (laughs)

Phrequency: How do you deal with the weather? If it snows, if it's raining, if it's hot?

Dan: That's another reason that we're at a colleg. Kids have to go to school, they have to walk around. A lot of kids don't have the money to take a taxi to school so they walk. Actually, in wintertime I saw a growth in the number of people coming to our truck.  We saw a steady increase, maybe not thousands of dollars, but definitely an increase, you know, slowly but surely.  Once springtime hit it was ridiculous.  Today [Thursday], I did really well. I'm not sure why, but I think part of it is the weather.  I also think that because it's July 4th weekend, I'm not going to open tomorrow. I think maybe today is like the Friday of the week because even though it's Thursday, people are leaving tomorrow for the 4th of July weekend so it wouldn't be to logical to be open tomorrow, they're gone. I also think that July 4th being Monday, people are going to take off Tuesday as well, so I'll stay closed until Wednesday. There's a lot of strategizing that goes into this. You're kind of like playing the odds.

Phrequency: Are you happy that you chose this profession over your original plans?

Dan: When I look back at it now, I'm very happy that it didn't happen.  But when it did happen, I was very heart-broken.  I was thinking these were my dreams, and now they're shattered. I thought about being in New York, and being in Manhattan, and maybe not being on the top of the world, but at least making a living. All of that didn't happen. It was very hard, but then I found this.  So my main thing is, don't make plans for something that hasn't even happened yet. I didn't even have a job and I was like well I'm going to need this, this and that.  Everyone's asking me if I'm going to have a Sugar Philly Storefront or multiple trucks, and I don't know! Why does that matter? When that comes I will handle it.  When people ask me my long-term strategy, I tell them that there doesn't need to be a long-term strategy.  I think when we first started the company and people asked me that, it made me nervous. I also recall everything that's happened to me, and everything has kind of worked out for me.

Obviously a lot of my customers are college students and some of them have become my friends. When they're going to class and stressing out, I talk to them and they're like 'I don't know how I'm ever going to get a job, these interviews suck' and I'm just like listen, as long as you try hard, you've got something. Now that doesn't mean that you try hard at getting one position and you get it.  But I think if you're trying hard and people see that you're trying hard. If you're doing the right thing and you're not cutting people off and you're being genuine, something will happen, and somebody will notice that. My buddy John, he knew this wasn't going to be an instant thing. I never went to culinary school.  I went to the library, and I studied techniques and culinary components.  I took those books home and I did those things.  I taught myself how to do it.  So yeah, I think that when you try hard, things turn out for you, people notice.

Phrequency: For those aspiring to be chefs in food trucks, what kind of advice would you give them?

Dan: (laughs) I don't know! I think it's funny when John calls me Chef Tang because I don't sit at home and think "yes, I am a pastry chef". I kind of just say that as a title so people can identify what I do. I've only been doing this for two years, professionally speaking, but I think from what little wisdom I do have, I think that food is a really special thing.  It can make you feel so many different ways.  It can make you feel great if it has something sweet. Food can make you feel nostalgic and think about home, it's a very powerful thing.  I think that when you're a chef, you should know that you have a responsibility to be doing these things.  I think you should know that you have that responsibility and take it very seriously. 

I think a lot of people go to culinary school, or college, and they don't know what they're doing or why they're doing it.  Think about what you want to do. When you find out what you want to do, go all in.  I don't understand some restaurants, where they're like 'let's just use this stuff',  and I'm looking at it and I'm like why would you ever use that? That doesn't make sense to me.  Where is the passion? That's the thing. That's sort of cliché and typical, but it's really true.  I think it really shows up in your work.  People can taste the difference between good food and bad food, very easily. Without even talking to the person who made the food, when somebody takes a bite out of something, you can feel if the person who made it really put their heart into it, or if they just made it because they had to.

I remember this girl came [to my truck] one day and she had a bite of something and she said this reminds me of when I was in Italy.  It was just such a huge compliment and it made me feel so great because that's exactly what I wanted someone to get out of it, and I knew what she was talking about because I studied abroad in Italy.  The fact that we both had that connection was very meaningful to me. So yeah, vision is also a good one.  Have a clear vision of what you want to portray through your food, or what you want people to feel when they have it.  I think also, work on technique.  It's so important and people kind of skip out on it.  When you become a chef, whatever hours you work, whether it's like 4pm-midnight or 6 am- whatever, I think your job doesn't end when you leave there. I literally think about food all the time. I think, what am I doing next? Sometimes when I'm bored, we have a recipe for French Macaroons,  I'll sit there and google French Macaroons and I don't know why!  We're making so many on a given day, you would think that I would stop, but I don't, and I don't understand why I do it (laughs), but it's just, you know, what I do!  It's kind of taken over my life in the best way possible.

Phrequency: It's really refreshing to see someone who really cares about what they do.

Dan:  It's hard.  I don't want to criticize people who have a job that sucks, because it also pays the bills.  I can't criticize, because sometimes it depends on the circumstances.  I mean, I'm young, I'm 24, but say I was ten years older and had a family, a wife and kids.  Could I do this? No. There's no way.  So in a lot of ways, timing worked out. (smiles) It's strange.

 (The conversation ended with us gushing about the French macaroons that we got to try! AMAZING, we highly recommend them)

Thanks for such a lovely interview Dan!

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