We call ourselves Marketplace, so part of our job is exploring how marketplaces work, in all their forms. David Brancaccio and the “Marketplace Morning Report” team are setting out to visit in-person places of commerce, in a world where so much buying and selling has gone remote and digital. None are financial markets in a formal sense, but all markets are financial markets in a way, right? The goal is to learn the right and the wrong moves with experts.
This week: “A Business Reporter Goes to the Rodeo.” Today, we explore the food and culture of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
When you hear “rodeo,” you might think … “yeehaw.” And you wouldn’t be wrong.
But what we find here is not just one, single vibe. Houston rapper of legend, Bun B, celebrated his birthday with 75,000 of his closest friends on the fourth night of the rodeo.
And he’s not just one of the Houston Rodeo’s biggest musical acts. He’s also co-founder and co-owner of Trill Burgers, one of its food destinations. It’s set up a special outpost at the rodeo called Trill Town for this year’s festivities.
“People always think of, you know, cowboys, country music, this and that. It blends every crowd that’s out here in Houston. You see all sorts of crowds in Houston that come out here to the rodeo,” said Fernando Valladares, executive chef and another of Trill Burgers’ owners.
This is not Chef Nando’s first rodeo: He’s an entrepreneur with a lot of experience delivering celebrity-driven dining concepts into the world. Among his tricks of the trade is a focus on taste over marketing — “how we develop the flavors of the burger as a whole. Every single layer of it,” he said.
The Trill Burgers operation is also keeping a close eye on money in and money out. “Everything is ran through numbers. Everything is ran through margins,” Valladares said.
And, of course, there’s logistics. With an expected 2.5 million people walking in over the three weeks here at Houston’s NRG Park, Trill Burgers has surged from one to now seven kitchens at the rodeo. Last year, Valladares had to pull everyone from one of his normal locations to meet demand. This time, labor supply equals labor demand.
“Growing pains, right? So this year, we definitely pivoted, and we knew exactly what was needed,” Valladares said.
A few hundred yards east, it’s a carnival raised to maybe the 11th power. Midway? More like a runway at George Bush International. If I had the courage, I’d get a smoked turkey leg the size of my forearm. But I did get the half-a-pineapple stuffed with fried shrimp and sprinkled with Fruity Pebbles. All the fault of Dominic Palmieri with RCS Carnival Midway.
“I say, throw on your stretchy pants, and start on one end of Circle Drive on the midway, and work your way right around the corner.”
Palmieri curates everything to eat in the carnival section here. His tagline is “Midway Gourmet” but “carny economics“ is also his game.
“The people that visit us at the rodeo are struggling and working paycheck to paycheck. So as we’re trying to figure out pricing, and design and create new menu items, we try and create as much value as possible,” he said.
Hence the Texas-sized portions that are doable if you share them “family style.”
“While that may be a $16 or $17 item, when you have four or five people that can share that, that’s where you really start to save some money to feed everybody at one time,” Palmieri said.
He said that when his banker needs a state-of-the-economy check, he doesn’t wait for the government data; he calls the carny. For instance, so many of the temps Palmieri hires already have other jobs.
“People are — they’re looking for work. The biggest section that we have right now is, believe it or not, people that are employed full time that are coming to saying, ‘I need an extra 15 to 20 hours a week. I’ll work Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night. Can I come in at six and work to close?’”
On the innovation front, he’s just done the U.S. launch of something that’s been going over big in Britain: “It’s a beautiful, big, tall, clear plastic cup, filled with the most delicious, ripe red strawberries,” he explained. “And then we have this cascading fountain of neverending, silky, warm chocolate.”
The confection came with two hard business lessons. No. 1: That syrupy silky chocolate can’t be shipped the cheaper way. Surprise: It needs to be cool, not frozen.
“When you talk about a pallet that might have been $300, or $400, or $500 a ship, is now $900 to $1,000 a ship.”
Lesson No. 2 is about the never-ending chocolate fountain that’s part of the flair. They make the fancy ones in Italy, but those units got stalled at the border this month because U.S. customs couldn’t figure out U.S. trade policy.
“Nobody knew. ‘Is there a tariff? Is there not a tariff? We don’t know what to do.’ And it took forever to clear,” Palmieri said.
Dominic is a pro with a Plan B: a less flashy spigot until the Ferrari of fountains made it through.
“It’s chocolate fountains, right? Little things that upset the market once in a while that you’ve got to work through,” he said.
Find all of our Tricks of the Trade stories here.
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