We were lucky to catch up with Randall Baldwin recently and have shared our conversation below.
Randall, appreciate you joining us today. So, one thing many business owners consider is donating a percentage of sales or profits to an organization or cause. We’d love to hear your thoughts and the story behind how and why you chose the cause or organization you donate to.
Darleen’z Dillaz is fully committed to donating a portion of our sales to the Pancreatic Action Network on behalf of my beloved aunt Darlene who passed in 2017. She is whom the truck is named after, and she represents the fighting spirit of so many people who have succumbed to this horrible cancer. At most venues, we set up an entire table dedicated to her story and provide a place to make donations, pancreatic purple bracelets and stickers.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Hey, I am Randall Baldwin and currently I am a food truck owner and executive chef. I have been running my quesadilla food truck for over 3 years now and my catering company for 6 years. We specialize in hand crafted quesadillas that are unique and made fresh to order. Having an executive chef cooking on a food truck means that you really get the highest quality food every single time.
Before moving to Denver 6 years ago, you could find me working in some of Aspen and Snowmass finest restaurants and clubs. I first started in this industry at the age of 11 while washing dishes for my familys restaruant in Steamboat Springs. I mostly was paid in quarters because at the time I had a Pacman addiction! But all though high school and even college my jobs were in food service and restaurants. It just felt like a good fit and I was really good at what I was doing. I ended up leaving CSU in Ft. Collins and attended and graduated from the Colorado Institute of Art with a degree in the culinary arts.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
In my short 3.5 years of opening and conducting my business, I have been faced with an abundance of issues along that way that nearly put me out of business before I could even get my momentum going. My biggest problems getting started were the mechanical issues I faced. The first year alone had already dumped an additional $25,000 into the truck for mechanical repairs. The worst part of that was facing the problem of becoming “unreliable” as a new food truck starting out. That made me sick to my stomach, having to cancel shifts because the truck was out of commission and jeopardizing my reputation was the worst feeling. I think a lot of people look at food trucks and they are all dressed up really nice on the outside and they must think that truck is new and awesome. Well, sometimes that is lipstick on a pig and that was exactly my situation. That truck is your livelihood, without it you are literally going nowhere. I have actually paid a tow truck to take my truck to certain venues where I could still serve and make money and then have it towed back home. My advice to any new food trucker is spend the money on a good, solid and reliable truck!
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
First of all, at the time that I opened Darleen’z Dillaz we were the only “quesadilla” specific food truck in the Denver area. Obviously that was a huge selling point for us and a chance to build a reputation around that was instrumental. We found out right away that a quesadilla is as inviting to a child at a fair to a bunch of guys sitting around drinking beer at a brewery. We had a good handle on being very acceptable to all types of customers. Additionally, having a very seasoned and high level executive chef/owner as pretty much the only one cooking on truck was a no brainer. This brought 2 main things into play and those were “consistency” and “execution”.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.darleenzdillaz.com
- Instagram: @darleenzdillaz
- Facebook: @darleenzdillaz