This was our very first concessions event.  My good friends Jerry and Uschi owned a health food restaurant in Huntington Beach.  They volunteered to help out (not knowing what they were getting themselves into!).   Jerry located an electronics store right on the parade route that had just gone out of business.  The owners agreed to let us use their empty store as a place to base our concessions.

Since this was our first event we, um, may have bought more stock than we really needed.  This is the load in the parking lot of the restaurant supply store, two days before the parade.

Jerry says, "Just LOOK at all this wonderful stock!" as Colleene looks on, too stunned for comment.

Jerry and Jarvis show no intimidation as they prepare to load all that stock into the support vehicle, which was affectionately named "The Beast."

At just 2 PM on New Year's Eve Day, it's amazing how many people have already arrived and staked out their spots on the parade route.

Every available open space on Colorado Blvd. gets used for bleachers.

New Year's Day, 2005!
We set up two concessions stands.  Jerry and Colleene capably oversee the back of the building stand to serve folks coming from and going to the parade route.

Here comes the parade!

Working the New Year's Day Parade means not getting much sleep the night before.

To borrow a line from a Joe Ely song, we musta notta gotta lotta sleep last night.

Meanwhile, Bob and Uschi ran the stand we set up at the front of the building.  Lucky them--they got to look out right on to the parade.

Our prep area was just inside the front door.  That's where Jarvis did most of his work.

Pretty awesome prep area, if Jarvis does say so himself!

Uschi and Bob say, "Happy New Year 2005!"

The Tournament Of Roses Parade concessions crew: Uschi, Jerry, Bob, Colleene and Jarvis.

Now the parade's over and we have to pack up all this stuff.  Gulp.

We got it done!  That's the same corner where the prep area was.  Now the concession stands and prep area are all cleaned up and packed.

Looking West from our corner on Colorado Blvd., just two hours after the end of the parade.  Almost everyone has already cleared out, leaving behind a pretty big mess.

Looking East from our corner on Colorado Blvd.,  two hours after the end of the parade.  Jarvis says, "Woohoo!  We did it!"

We didn't sell anywhere near all that stock we bought, but we had a heck of a great time and we learned a lot that we could apply toward future events.