The Burke Brothers

A couple of months ago my brother and I decided to start up a small business. After a few years of tossing around ideas that just didn't seem to work, we finally decided to buy a hot dog cart.

Although the business itself was the best thing we ever decided to do for ourselves, we got sold a brand new cart that fell apart within a few local car rides. First one propane knob fell off, then another, then the grill itself fell apart due to the vibrations while on the road(some companies are famous for these problems (AAA hot dog carts and a few others)). After being faced with this dilemma, we called the guy who built the cart and told him the problem. At first, he seemed like he was going to help. He promised to send out the part the next morning. He didn't. A week went by and still no part. We had an event to do, so we did it.....even with no valve or knob. Hey, we had to meet a commitment to a client...valve or no valve. When we arrived, we set our up our cart and got our items ready for sale. Next, we turned the left burner on(which still had the valve stem) and everything worked fine, but when we turned the right one on, the cart turned into a flame thrower! Fire was shooting out of the front of our cart. It was unreal. This was a safety hazard for everyone.....especially us. Sure enough, by the end of the day, I burned my hand rather severely and my brother lost half of the hair on his arm. We called the guy and told him he sold us a defective cart and that I had burned by hand....and he just said "Nope." and hung up the phone. He was not going to even send the part or fix the problem....and this was the owner of the business. Nice, huh?

Okay, so he obviously wasn't going to help. We had to find some kind of solution, so we called a few grill repair places around town and we were finally referred to a local hardware store with outstanding customer service. We were pleasantly surprised. The guys at Burke Brothers completely gutted, repaired and fortified our cart that day. It works better than we ever imagined. When we originally called Burke Brothers(www.burkebrothershardware.com), they gave us a time to come down there, and they were ready. Their store was hopping with business, but they were so organized, that we never had to wait. They were good for their word on time, labor, price and quality of service. We will definitely go back there again ourselves and recommend them to others. I can't say the same for the hot dog guy.

So what was the point of this blog? Was is to tell you all about my hot dog business? To complain about the guy who sold us our cart? To compliment the Burke Brothers? None of the above. The take home message is..... be good for your word, do what's right and take the time to care about others. Cheers to the Burke Brothers! Thanks again guys!

See you next time! (www.burkebrothershardware.com)