We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gladys & John Springsteel. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gladys & John below.
Gladys & John, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you have any advice regarding quality control and maintaining quality as your brand grows?
The biggest step we wanted to take as a small business was to keep the same quality control and taste with our food as it was from day one. We hear it daily…how ‘on point’ our food tastes. Each filling is made with the same exact ingredients, calculated correctly as the volume grows and our empanadas hit every. single. time. As we grow and we have tripled our sales yearly since 2018 I continue to make sure not to substitute any ingredient. We use the same products (from salt to tomatoes, mushrooms to meats, etc.) and as tedious as a job that this is…. it’s satisfying to see that our quality has maintained a certain level of perfection. We have traveled throughout the US and South America and experienced empanadas from the fanciest restaurants in Peru and Mexico to little dives down an alley in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Santiago, Chile. and I have learned different styles of empanadas and created our fillings to appease our consumers. Now to be very honest, we get SO many requests and I am one person doing all the cooking and my husband does all the filling of each and every single empanada (his F/T job) and we can only do so much. Our biggest requests are:
1-Gluten Free empanadas
2-More vegetarian options
3-Vegan empanada
We have since developed 2 Gluten Free empanadas made by hand from masa (corn dough that is 100% GF)
We have have a ‘Spinach and Cheeses’ filling for several years and it’s our only Vegetarian option at the moment.
We are coming up with a vegan option (very soon)
We just don’t create whatever, shove it into a disc (empanada shell), fry it, and call it an option….NOOOOO.
I ask questions, I read and research best options and what’s the trend, I create the filling (small batches), make a handful
of empanadas (freeze them and fry them exactly as the consumer receives them) and get feedback. Once we get the ‘eye rolls’ we know we got a NEW filling. It’s definitely NOT an overnight creation. It can take weeks to find the new filling. Once a filling makes it to the 410 Menu….it’s a new family member.
We have maintained our quality of food by making sure I develop each and every one myself. I have been teaching my son (Johnny) and nephew (Abdul) how to make some of the fillings since they are our legacy and who will one day take over. I have been making empanadas for over 30 years and as I tell my consumers…. I will NEVER pick one over the other (when I get asked daily ‘which is my favorite?’) I have focused on each filling, each empanada, each order with a lot of detail and heart and I can not pick one over the other….they’re all my kids…. all 35 fillings and growing.
We have not raised our prices in 2 years despite the extremely and disappointing raise of everything. Restaurant and food truck owners are seeing an increase in: meats, veggies and fruit, flour, seasonings, oil, to-go packaging, wax paper, ketchup, sodas/water, plastic utensils, napkins, commercial vehicle and restaurant insurance, workman’s comp insurance, credit card fees are at an all time high and going up again…. and on and on.
Gladys & John, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Well…. John and I met and married in Jersey where we are originally from. We have 3 boys… Daniel (33), Johnny (21) and Stephen (21). Daniel is a Vehicle designer with Nissan and is married to my beautiful Daughter-in-Law, Ashley and they live in Los Angeles. Johnny is attending Harford Comm College and graduating this Spring and he’s the backbone of 410 Empanadas. Stephen is a Junior at Frostburg State University and lives on campus. John is a super supportive husband and gave up his amazing job back in 2011 so that I can chase my career when my job moved us to Virginia Beach in July 2011. Then July 2013 moved us to Maryland (office in Baltimore) we lived in Aberdeen. Once the boys got older John decided to get a P/T job to keep busy. After 2 years of that he was miserable. My happy go lucky, laid back always chipper husband was no longer that. So we decided to take every last penny of our savings (a little over $30K) and build a food truck…. well we wanted to open a business. After much deliberation…Food Truck was the one. Now what??? Hot dogs?? In Jersey we know a few people that paid their mortgage, married a few kids and put their kids through college selling hot dogs…. but in MD that option is not profitable (after I researched the hell out of it).
While John worked at Tractor Supply, every year for Thanksgiving potluck, everyone brought a dish. John would bring in my OG Beef empanadas (about 100 pieces)… they’d go within minutes. A co-worker (now great friend of ours) Sherry says “Hey you should SERIOUSLY sell these”…. that stuck with us.
So an empanada food truck it is. But….there’s one problem. I only make the BEEF. So, I started walking up and down the frozen food aisle at Shoprite and eyeballing the Hot Pockets fillings and getting inspirations from that.
We placed our order for our 12’x6′ trailer in Orioles Orange, with a concession window and an extended tongue in July 2017. It was built in Georgia (just the trailer shell) and we picked her up end of August. She sat in the driveway until the boys returned to school and John could focus for the hours they’re in school to building a mobile kitchen. He started Tuesday, Sept 4, 2017 and after tons of mistakes, retakes, start overs, health dept meetings, hiring an electrician, we finally opened on Friday, Feb 16, 2018.
Was it easy??? OMG no it wasn’t…. after a few weeks of barely selling empanadas, I sat there and cried thinking “what did we do, we drained our savings and we can’t sell our food” My anxiety had me very confused and stumped. John was hopeful and knew it would take off since he always loved my cooking. One day I get a call from the City of Aberdeen asking if we would join their Farmers Market every Thursday from 4-7pm (just down the street from where we parked to vend). That was the turn of 410 Empanadas. Lots of people loved our food, took business cards, we were approached by a local brewery that no longer hosts food trucks. but it was the start for us as far as selling at breweries.
Here we are 6 years later, opened our first brick and mortar and booking our food truck 1 year in advance. We had 2024 booked back in Dec 2023. We’ve been booking the year ahead for 3 years now. I still work F/T and need to know my schedule so that I can work my vacation time around our business.
We went from making 50-65 empanadas a week to sustain our (then) sales to now we are making 270-300 empanadas A DAY and we still can’t keep up with demand.
This whole experience has shown us so much. We see that community is everything. That our consumers are the most important people to us. Without them…we are just an orange trailer sitting in a lot in Aberdeen trying to make a sale. Yes, we worked extremely hard, we sit in the trailer in the middle of winter when it’s 15 degrees inside with small space heaters for heat, and in the middle of summer when the inside of the trailer thermometer reads 119 degrees and NO Air Conditioning…. just small fans… but we have never regret it, made excuses not to sell and had to cancel 3 events in 6 years due to family death, and accidental double booking….. other than that…. we show to every single of our bookings.
Our original intention to opening the truck and now restaurant is so that we can offer Harford County with at least one additional food option. One that is unique and tasty. We have switched to Halal meats almost a year now. We have lots of Muslim friends and family and see the difficulties they have in eating out for fun. So, it made absolutely no difference to us. We have removed any pork products and are following the rules. We will get certified soon. We still have Greta out and about (food truck) she’s not going anywhere. Our brick and mortar is named Gracie (after Havre de Grace).
We have worked very hard to develop our brand and will continue to do so. We will never give less than 100% to our food, service and the consumer experience.
Oh, did I mention… I make my own sauces too….
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
This is a hard hitting question because when we first opened the food truck we thought “this was going to be a no brainer” and after 3-4 weeks of barely selling empanadas, but selling lots of hot dogs, fries, shrimp and fried fish…. I realized how difficult this was actually going to be.
Most people couldn’t pronounce empanadas, had NO clue what they were, so many were skeptical of trying something they’ve never heard of and it was all so heartbreaking. I cried thinking we made such a huge mistake.
John and I pushed and pushed…. we hung up pictures of the empanadas and the fillings inside to give them a visual.
I made teeny tiny empanadas and handed out samples. I pushed and pushed and even gave some away free with say a hot dog purchase so they could see what they were missing out on….. well, it worked. We had repeat consumers. Then work got around. I started getting calls to bring the truck to various business warehouses to serve lunch. It was NOT easy at all. It was a time in our lives that we wouldn’t wish on anyone.
Can we make everyone happy? Of course not. There are people out there that are chronic complainers and they look for any opportunity to bring you down, to spew nasty, exaggerated and not 100% truthful scenarios in order to fluff their stories and all I can say is…. I used to take that stuff to heart and it affected me…. but not anymore.
I have come to the conclusion that the 22,000+ people we have served in 6 years (65% are returning/repeat) customers… can’t be wrong. Those are the amazing people we focus on making happy. They’re the ones that stop by just to say hello, give words of encouragement, that patronize us every chance they get and we LOVE them for it. When we say we love our consumers…. WE LOVE THEM!!!!! We have made so many beautiful friends in the 6 years we’ve been in business. Are they customers??? yes, technically because they stop by our place and buy our products so that’s technically a customer…but to us they’re more than that. They’re friends…. we try to get to know ech and every one of them. We know most of their names, spouses or significant others names, kids names, their Go-To empanadas, we know what’s going on in their lives…. that’s what we call friends. Friends that support us….
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Our dedication and commitment to our consumers. The fact that we make it our mission to always hand over fresh, quality food. We have amazing people helping us run the business…. our staff is one of a kind. Not one person there does one job. I can open the door to the restaurant or food truck and leave any one of my staff alone and they’ll be able to open, set-up, run the fryer, the window, registers (2 different systems), plating, boxing and closing…without any issues. Everyone is trained to do any specific job at any time. No one has titles…. we are all 410 Staff, running a small business to the best of our ability, supporting each other, backing each other up and we have SO MUCH FUN while doing it. My staff has the freedom to do what they feel is necessary to do their job but know that if the job is not done…. they have me to face, and as much as I love them all… they don’t want me to say “hey, we need to talk”….. never had to do it…. but that’s because they are amazing!!!
I never thought I’d ever leave the food truck window…. I’ve been the face of 410 for 6 years and now I have given the reigns over to Abdul. He’s now the face of the 410 food truck. He’s so good with our consumers…. and the ladies love him. Johnny and Abdul always work together because they work incredible well. They start and finish each others workload without even talking. Josh is in culinary training at Harford Tech and is going to culinary school in August after HS graduation. He’s been such a wonderful addition to the team. He’s the quiet one that sits back and laughs at the silliness the others do and don’t get me wrong…. he’s a goofball himself at times. Mercedes has been with us 5 years and she’s the daughter I never had. She’s my niece and love her to pieces and she has struggled with us in that cold/hot truck for many, many seasons and has helped us with small events that she could’ve handled herself all the way to Trifecta Food Truck and Music Fest in Timonium (10 hr event) where there are over 10K people in one day that need to be fed.
Working in the restaurant isn’t easier than the food truck but it’s definitely different. Not many people could handle working in a restaurant or even a food truck. Having dependable, loyal, hard-working staff that has your same goals in mind is extremely hard to find in the industry…. we rely on consistency, training all the time, updating everyone with any changes so everyone’s up to par with the new and latest of 410 and we get together a few times a year to sit and break bread and catch up and John and I thank them for their ongoing efforts.
These kids…. have helped us build a reputation that we are proud of. They come in smiling and laughing, throw on their work faces, get the jobs done hour after hours, event after event, then head home with smiles on their faces laughing some more. We all bend over backwards to make our consumers 410 experience a positive one. All the above we feel has helped us build our reputation in the food truck industry and hope it shows.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.410empandas.com
- Instagram: @410Empanadas
- Facebook: @410Empanadas
Image Credits
These are all our pictures, please use as needed.