After almost a decade in the shadows the original Didely mobile is back out of retirement and coming to a party near you!
Sporting a flashy new paint job that looks fast just sitting still and a completely refitted, state-of-the-art interior, Didely One is ready to rock once more. Read on below for the story behind this iconic piece of Australian hot dog history.
"Fast food became glamorous. The finesse, fashion and flair of New York street food culture began to rub off here, taking on a multicultural identity of its own and with it, the whole associated subculture of mobile food vending took off with a hiss and a roar."
In the Beginning...
In the early days, food truck culture wasn't much of a thing in Oz, at least not in the same way as our counterparts in the USA and elsewhere. About the nearest thing we ever had here was Mr. Whippy, just a hacked up postie van and not really big enough for any kind of serious fast food business. Food trucks were limited to pretty ratty looking trailers and converted caravans selling some fairly ordinary, lukewarm, greasy adaptations of fast food - bagged window burgers, chips and the like - usually found at travelling circuses and the occasional country show.
Then something changed. Fast food became glamorous. The finesse, fashion and flair of New York street food culture began to rub off here, taking on a multicultural identity of its own and with it, the whole associated subculture of mobile food vending took off with a hiss and a roar.
It's notoriously difficult to come up with a mobile food concept that translates well into a portable kitchen. A food truck has to comply with all sorts of (often conflicting) workplace safety requirements, building codes and food standards, have sufficient room for workflow, storage and refrigeration whilst also containing all the required appliances and running on a strict power budget. You need to be able to bang out meals as fast as you can to impatient crowds through a small window, all day long with little to no prep on site. Then you need to be able to hook it up and put it on the road. Sounds straightforward right?
Well it isn't and we should know. We travelled the world looking for the best mobile food businesses to see what worked, both in terms of the food offering and how the food truck was set up to deliver it and somehow ended up living full-time in China, building our own. Many of the food trailers you see in Australia embody innovative technology that we developed, copied by factories all over China to be exported almost everywhere- but that's another story for another time.
A Fast Food Success Story
Didely One was a trailblazer and well ahead of its time. The ability to feed hundreds of people in under an hour from a tiny trailer that can be towed behind a normal sedan, fitting into tight spaces whilst running off nothing but a single power point or a handheld generator is still virtually unheard of in the food truck world.
Selling fresh, on-demand hot dogs to hungry closing-time-rush patrons outside the Morty Pub in Sydney's south was proof that this little fibreglass pocket rocket packed a mean punch in terms of service, novelty and brand recognition.
Times change however and the demand for indoor corporate events in Sydney saw Didely One eventually recede into obscurity and finally drop out of service altogether. The poor old girl fell into disrepair and spent many, many years languishing in the sun until, in a freak administrative error, she was accidentally picked up by a transport courier and whisked off to Melbourne, the victim of a case of mistaken identity (the food trailer that was supposed to be taken had in fact been stolen just a couple of days prior...).
And so another two years went by and Didely One sat in the transport company's yard, all but forgotten, seemingly for good. It was only when the idea came up to look at the Melbourne market that Didely One again acquired relevance. Victoria in general and Melbourne in particular had become a thriving hub for food truck culture with events such as the Queen Vic Summer and Winter Markets becoming world renowned must-attend events, not to mention the numerous regional markets, car show 'n' shine meets and country festivals that are all a part of proud Victorian life. So the decision was made to revamp the unit, bring it up to spec and make a comeback with a vengeance.
A lot has changed since the first genesis - when this idea was first developed, there were virtually no standards that applied directly to food trucks so what was possible then is simply not allowed now. How on Earth do you fit three full-sized sinks into a box that was designed for a human and a dog only (yes, it was originally designed as a dogwash trailer - we know. No, it has never actually been a dog wash trailer, for those who may be concerned...). Fortunately, our time in China left us well prepared to answer such questions and a whole lot more, with a little Didely magic.
The original hot water system ran on gas, which is no longer permitted in a trailer such as this, so we now had to go electric. Hot water for washing up is mandatory and finding an electric hot water unit that's compact enough was in itself a challenge. And we wanted to add a couple of breakfast dogs to our menu (the Big Dawg's Breakfast and the Euro-Style Brekky Dog). Both of these options require considerably more electricity, which brought us back to the greatest challenge designing any food truck - not enough power. So we installed a load balancing system that we custom-designed ourselves during the Great Episode of China that pauses the hot water heater when the big heating appliances kick in, allowing us to still run off a single power point. Nifty huh?
Lots of other little things, a music system, solar backup for multi-day festivals and off-grid batteries for the basic appliances, new and better lighting, modernised graphics, ventilation and completely replaced electrics and plumbing round out the package. We are confident that Didely One is now and again the Aussie National Champion in its weight division and will be pumping out our signature Hot Didely Dogs, made fresh to order every time, for many years to come.
