VendrTV First Birthday!

What do you get when you take three of the best street food vendors in New York and put them at the doorstep of a bar, where just inside there’s booze, music, and one of the best VJs in town projecting food porn mash-ups against the walls? A full belly—and a pretty awesome birthday party.

Last Friday, VendrTV, a video podcast that profiles street food vendors across the nation in delicious weekly installments, celebrated its one-year anniversary at The Cove in Williamsburg. The event was catered by Calexico Carne Asada, Schnitzel & Things, Wafels & Dinges, and Brooklyn Brewery, with an after party VJ’d by Eclectic Method. Nom.

VendrTV is the brainchild of Williamsburg resident and Executive Producer Daniel Delaney, who came up with the idea after graduating with a design degree from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and doing his thesis on street carts and design.

“I always had this entrepreneurial spirit,” Delaney explained. “Growing up, I was the kind of the guy that was always dog walking and baby sitting, selling used books and this and that. I also had the good fortune of going to an arts university and had a lot of friends that were also in the industry, so it was a shoo-in to be able to have the technology, know-how, and resources to put it together.”

The website launched in February 2009, with an episode about The Treats Truck in New York. Since then, Delaney has eaten his way through the East and West coast, munching on tacos, falafels, dumplings, hot dogs, waffles, crepes, pizza, and ice cream, and exploring authentic cuisines from around the world as well as new twists on old favorites.

From day one, Delaney’s crew has made an effort to focus on design, aesthetics, editing, and production, creating beautiful episodes that can compete with the production quality of network television shows. On top of that, they use hard data to make sure they’re being as effective as possible.

“We were adamant about creating a beautiful show from day one,” Delaney said. “We didn’t want it to look like a bad web show. We wanted to rival the Food Network or exceed it, so just starting off with that bar allowed for a certain level of credibility when trying to get guests on the show.”

“It’s not romantic to say,” he continued, “but almost all the changes have come from hard data. Even though I have a design degree and a very strong knowledge of design, I’m driven by numbers and analytics. The people that work on the actual visuals of the site hate me for this, but I measure where everyone’s mouse moves, how long people are watching the videos, and where their interest peaks, and we take all of that into account to modify the videos to make them the most enjoyable for viewers.”

His team is constantly at work, and has culled a database of over 7,000 street food vendors across the nation. Before they decide on a subject, they contact food writers from the area to make sure they’ve chosen well. Their careful attention and thorough research, in addition to the recent explosion in street food and food truck popularity, has brought them 40,000 viewers per week and a distribution deal with Next New Networks. Delaney is also in the process of securing a book deal and television contract with a major network.

“It’s just grown and people have enjoyed it,” Delaney said. “The beautiful thing about the web is that I can become very intimate with the people that watch my show. I know Oscar in Mexico; I know a family coming from France for the party tonight. People watch the show all over the place. This party is really exciting because it’s the first time I’m actually going to be able to interact with people and take something that’s already intimate—since the web is more intimate than television—and make it even more so.”

Though the Internet has certainly played a major role in Delaney’s success, he also notes that when it comes to the web and social media, those tools can only help a business so much.

“The street food industry blew up, for whatever reason, about two or three months after we started the show, and it became a trending topic on all different news sources,” Delaney said. “I think that’s partly a result of where the economy was at the time—street food is a little forgiving because you can have a great meal and not really pay a lot for it—and it also had to do with technology. Vendors were able to use new technology like Facebook and Twitter to communicate with an audience on a very intimate level and help leverage their businesses. However, I will say at the end of the day, I’ve seen tons of vendors that use Twitter and this and that very aggressively, and actually my conclusion and thesis was that it just doesn’t matter. Social media has very little, if anything to do with the longevity of your business. A street vendor is no different from any other restaurant business: if you don’t have a good product, people are not going to come back. It’s very easy to generate a lot of press for anything in the beginning, but [the product] needs to be substantial.”

Friday’s party was a glutton’s delight, featuring pulled pork, seitan, and chicken tacos with toppings like apple slaw and avocado puree from the Calexico Carne Asada cart; bratwurst, chicken schnitzel, and schnitz burgers with potato salad and braised sauerkraut from the Schnitzel & Things truck; and hot, fresh, Belgian wafels with all of the gooey fixings from Wafels & Dinges.

“We’re very excited,” said Oleg Voss, co-owner of Schnitzel & Things. “Dan has been very nice to us since we first started and has supported us in many different ways. We’re happy to be able to help him out.”

In May, the VendrTV crew is getting a tour bus and hitting the road again for six months, this time stopping at as many street food vendors as possible between the coasts. Check out episodes at Vendr.tv, and send suggestions to tips@vendr.tv.