Today we’d like to introduce you to Alisha & Chris Barnebey.
Hi Alisha & Chris, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
We are a married couple – Chris “Bagel” and Alisha, who, for some reason, decided to start a food trailer business in the midst of a pandemic. Bagel is the chef with over a decade of experience in the food industry and specialized training from the Culinary Institute of America. Alisha works a full-time office job. Together we have nearly 60 years of experience eating food.
We both always had dreams of owning a business. We tested the waters by briefly opening a pop-up kitchen at a bar in 2019. We received great feedback and enjoyed the short-lived experience. When our employment situation changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, we thought it may be the right time to formally start a business. Within six months, Dipping Springs Tender Co served its first order of chicken tenders. We wanted to create a business where we could add value to the community, where we could give back to others, and where we could serve some delicious foods.
We hope that our food brings you joy and makes you think about southern flavors in different ways.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
When starting a business during a pandemic, we knew there would be some challenges but we never could have anticipated just how wild life would be in 2020-2021. As first-time business owners who started a brand new business, there has been a steep learning curve. Even getting all of the appropriate permits during COVID extended our timeline and caused us to push back our opening date. After getting into a rhythm, we still had the usual struggles – connecting with the appropriate people to fix maintenance issues, finding alternate places to source our supplies as supply-chain issues arose, adjusting and updating our menu as we determined what “works”, trying to balance our new business with the rest of our lives, etc. We finished 2020 strong and received great feedback.
Then the winter storm of 2021 happened. We knew we needed to help our community in some way but didn’t quite know the best solution as a tiny, family-owned business. We decided that we would venture to our food truck, cook all of the food that we had “sell” it by donation only to whoever was able to come by. We had to bring a space heater to thaw our water tank, but we were able to successfully give out hundreds of meals. We also were lucky to receive support from Austin Eastciders and Deep Eddy Vodka who ended up paying for the meals so that any monetary donations collected could go directly to the East Austin organizations who were helping folks stay warm and fed. We did not expect that pivot to happen within our first quarter of being open, but we are so grateful that we were able to help our community during a collective time of need.
As 2021 has progressed, we have experienced the same issues that we are seeing happen on a national scale. We have adjusted our processes and hours due to shifting pandemic restrictions, experienced the effects of the labor shortage, changed recipes and packaging due to the continued supply-chain disruptions and still tried to find ways to allow our business to grow despite all of this. We have learned the value of our community, as we certainly could not have survived this long without their constant love and support, and to us, that is what it is all about.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Dipping Springs Tender Co?
Dipping Springs Tender Co is a new food truck located in East Austin. We specialize in crispy chicken tenders, made-in-house southern sides, and a variety of dipping sauces. We also offer many vegan options. We always want to keep things fresh so we offer rotating specialty tenders and entrees. We are not a big corporation, nor do we have backing from a restaurant group. We are just two people who want to share our love of food. We strive to have a positive impact on our community and are always looking for ways we can provide support. In our short existence, we have been able to host an impromptu luggage drive for Casa Marianella, co-hosted a skate event to raise funds for a new skate park, had a rotation of “Thankful Thursday” charity nights, and installed a Free Little Library that is stocked with cookbooks and children’s books. Currently, we are working on ways to expand our capacity so that we can fulfill more catering and event requests.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success to us means being able to serve high-quality food, at an affordable price point, to a wide variety of people and being able to make a connection with each of them through that experience. Success is being able to take our lessons learned and use those to continue growing and evolving. Success is being able to keep doing this thing that we love to do and enjoying every step of the way.
Contact Info:
- Email: dippingsprings@gmail.com
- Website: www.dippingspringstender.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/dippingspringstenderco
- Facebook: facebook.com/dippingspringstenderco
Image Credits:
Gerardo Rodriguez @grz1985 is the artist who created our logo and branding.
