Most Profitable Snacks to Sell: What makes the most money at a concession stand?
Most Profitable Snacks to Sell
You can't have a full menu at your concession stand without these classic foods. If you buy some important concession equipment, you can add popular foods to your menu that will help you make more money. We've put together a list of the most profitable menu items and given you tips on how to improve some of the most popular concessions.
Hot Dogs
Most Profitable Snacks to Sell
Hot dogs are a great choice for a traditional concession food that is cheap, popular with customers, and doesn't take a lot of work to make. Countertop hot dog rollers do most of the work for you. They show off footlongs, brats, and sausages as they cook and give off an enticing smell that draws more people to your concession stand. Guests can easily choose their favorite condiments, like relish, ketchup, or mustard, with the help of Heinz condiment dispensers and compatible condiment pouches. You could add some of these popular hot dog combinations to your menu: What makes the most money at a concession stand?
Ketchup or mustard? You can stay out of the battle over which is the most popular hot dog topping by letting your guests choose. The dispensers for ketchup or mustard from Heinz give out just the right amount of product.
The Chicago way:
Start with an all-beef frankfurter and top it with yellow mustard, green relish, a pickle spear, tomato slices, pickled peppers, and a sprinkle of celery salt. Most Profitable Snacks to Sell
Coney Island Hot Dogs: The classic Coney Island dog is a beef frank with meaty chili on top, but no beans. Add chopped onions and yellow mustard to finish it off.
Polish Boy in Cleveland: This Cleveland favorite is made with a kielbasa sausage, a lot of cole slaw, french fries, and barbecue sauce. Extra napkins are a must!
French Fries
It's hard to say no to a bucket of freshly cut french fries. This classic snack can be made ahead of time or cut on the spot using a french fry cutter. This crowd-pleasing snack can be made in just a few minutes in a countertop fryer. Try some of these ideas to change up the french fry menu at your concessions:
Most Profitable Snacks to Sell
Alternatives to Russet Potatoes: Instead of russets, try a purple Peruvian potato or a Japanese sweet potato. You could even skip the potatoes and serve jicama or yucca fries instead.
Cooking Oils: Try out different oils for deep frying, such as coconut oil, olive oil, and duck fat.
Ideas for Loaded Fry: Put lots of tasty things on your fries. Try poutine fries, carne asada fries, or bahn mi loaded fries.
Chicken Wings Fried foods like chicken wings are great for concession stands because they are easy to make. Put an order of wings in the fryer, and when they're done, toss them with sauce. Putting the wings on a plate with celery and blue cheese makes them ready to eat. You can spice up this simple menu item with our suggestions: What makes the most money at a concession stand?
Alternatives to Meat: More people than ever are interested in plant-based meats. Try making crispy cauliflower, deep-fried seitan, or buffalo tempeh as alternatives to chicken wings for vegans. Most Profitable Snacks to Sell
Smoked Chicken Wings: If you really want to make your chicken wings stand out, try smoking them the night before. Before serving them with ranch dressing, you flash-fry them to order and toss them in a classic Memphis dry rub seasoning.
Global Flavors: Offer Korean fried chicken wings, shawarma chicken wings, and pollo frito chicken wings, which are all popular street foods from around the world.
Even if you use high-end ingredients, loaded nachos are cheap to make and quick to put together.
Most Profitable Snacks to Sell
Ahi tuna, toasted chickpeas, pulled pork, huli-huli chicken, and fried tofu are all proteins you might not expect.
Unique Cheeses: beer cheese, paneer, cheese curds, queso, vegan cheese, Ayib.
You can eat pita chips, beet root chips, Fritos, wonton chips, sweet potato chips, or Cheetos instead of tortilla chips.
Funnel Cake: Even though people are becoming more health conscious, most people are happy to splurge at events. Use these ideas for funnel cake to make desserts that will make people forget about their diets.
What makes the most money at a concession stand?
Funnel Cake "Sandwiches" include a funnel cake ice cream sandwich, a funnel cake sandwich with fried chicken, and a funnel cake Monte Cristo.
Replace these classic desserts with funnel cake: You can use funnel cake instead of vanilla wafers, short cake, or graham crackers in banana pudding, strawberry shortcake, or s'mores.
Funnel cake batter with different flavors, like red velvet, chocolate, peanut butter, birthday cake, and lemon.
Cheese sandwich
Grilled cheese is a classic comfort food that sells well at concession stands when it is made with unusual or creative ingredients.
Sourdough, pumpernickel, focaccia, gluten-free, croissant, rugbraud, and buttermilk biscuits are all types of artisan breads.
Spreads for special occasions include spinach and artichoke, ajvar, baba ganoush, and Amba.
Mojo pork, mac and cheese, BBQ chicken, crab cakes, and burnt ends are all good things to add.
Pizza with ingredients that are fresh
There will be other people selling this popular food, so use our pizza ideas to beat them.
What makes the most money at a concession stand?
DIY Toppings: Let customers choose the sauces, cheeses, and other toppings they want.
Serve Less-Known Types of Pizza: Roman pizza, Detroit pizza, Ohio Valley pizza, Sicilian pizza, Greek pizza.
Adapt to different diets by offering gluten-free pizza crust, vegan cheese, cauliflower pizza crust, and toppings that don't contain meat.
Candy floss
Cotton candy is a classic concession stand food because it tastes like childhood and is easy to eat on the go. Use our ideas for gourmet cotton candy to attract people with more refined tastes.
Use Organic Ingredients: For your cotton candy recipe, use organic sugar and flavorings.
Creative Containers and sticks for cotton candy include an ice cream cone, a twisty stick, a mason jar, a rock candy stick, and a glow stick.
Pina colada, prickly pear, cherry cordial, pumpkin spice, pitaya, white chocolate, and acai are some of the fancy flavors.
Corn dog
Corn dogs are a common food at concession stands, but these ideas for corn dogs are anything but simple.
There are also lobster corn dogs, dill pickle corn dogs, and chicken tender corn dogs that don't have sausage.
Beer battered corn dogs, tempura battered corn dogs, and pancake battered corn dogs are all creative ways to coat corn dogs.
Marinara sauce, curry ketchup, mustard BBQ sauce, maple syrup, and tomato chutney are some of the unique dipping sauces.
Beef Sandwiches
There are many ways to make a beef sandwich, which shows that people love hot beef between warm bread no matter what you put on it or how you cut it. Use these beef sandwich ideas to make your sandwiches stand out.
You can make sandwiches out of comfort foods like beef stroganoff, Salisbury steak, pot roast, and beef bourgeon.
Local beef sandwiches include the Philly Cheesesteak, the Beef on Weck, the Italian Beef, and the Pit Beef sandwich from Baltimore.
Unique BBQ Sauces: El Sancho BBQ sauce, Carolina mustard BBQ sauce, guava BBQ sauce, Carolina vinegar BBQ sauce.
Menu tip for a concession stand: Find something you do really well and make that the main item on your menu. Once you have a steady group of customers who come to your stand often, you can look to grow.
Rapid Cook Ovens, Most Profitable Snacks to Sell
Rapid cook ovens are a must if you want to add more items to your menu and cut down on the time it takes to prepare them. They can cook a pizza in less than four minutes, make a perfectly crisp panini in seconds, and roast a chicken breast in less than seven minutes. Rapid cook ovens take up a lot less space than regular ovens, which makes them perfect for food stands. Depending on what you're making, this might be the only thing you need.
Most Profitable Snacks to Sell
Foods that sell well at concession stands
Popcorn sold at a snack stand
Concession stand foods that make money are cheap to buy in bulk, easy to make in large quantities, and don't need cutlery. Here are the foods that make the most money at concession stands:
Snow cones, corn dogs, cotton candy, nachos, roasted nuts, snow cones, and ice cream.
Ideas for Healthy Foods to Sell at a Stand
Hummus and Pita Chips Sold by the Piece
When making a menu for your concession stand, it's important to keep in mind the growing trend toward healthy eating and the increased awareness of food allergens. This will help you serve customers who have special dietary needs. Here are some healthy snacks that you can sell at your concession stand.
1. Fruit Snacks, Most Profitable Snacks to Sell
The easiest to peel and eat fruit snacks are the best ones for snack bars. Stock these fruit snacks in your snack stand.
Fruit Snack Ideas
Bananas, apples, and oranges that have already been cut.
2. Nuts that have been roasted
The healthy fats in roasted nuts will keep people at the ballpark full even if the game goes into extra innings, making them a great snack to sell at your concession stand.
Pecans in praline
Honey Roasted Nuts and German Roasted Nuts are two kinds of roasted nuts.
Roasted nuts with cinnamon
Toasted Rum Nuts with Coconut
3. Vegetable Snacks
Pre-cut vegetables and single-serve dips are great snacks for people on the go that won't make them feel too full.
Ideas for Vegetable Snacks
Celery and peanut butter, sweet bell pepper and hummus, cucumber slices and tzatziki, jumbo dill pickles, carrot sticks, and ranch dressing.
Ideas for Food Already Made to Sell
Cookies with chocolate chips
You can make simple crowd-pleasers away from the stand and bring them there. Some of these foods can only be served hot if you have the right tools. If you buy a food warmer, you can keep food that has already been cooked at a ready-to-serve temperature without having to add more space to your concession stand or spend more time preparing food on-site.
1. Cookies
In the United States, we eat about seven billion cookies each year. It's easy to make money by selling these tasty treats, but which flavors do people like best? We're going to tell you about the most popular cookies so you can make a lot of money.
Most Well-Known Cookies
Cookies with chocolate chips
Cookies with peanut butter
Cookies made of oats
Sugar Cookies
2. Popcorn
These popular flavors of popcorn are sure to sell. Change how you see them to make your concession stand stand out.
What makes the most money at a concession stand
Flavors of Popcorn
Caramel popcorn with cheese and chocolate popcorn with popcorn.
Coconut Oil Popcorn with Cajun Popcorn and Toasted Coconut
3. Brownies
Brownies are a popular baked good that you can make ahead of time and sell at your concession stand for a lot of money. Here are some suggestions for the best brownies to sell.
What makes the most money at a concession stand
Brownie Varieties
Keto Brownies Vegan Brownies
Brownies are everywhere (cookie, Oreo, and brownie layered bar)
Brownies with peanut butter
Brownies with cream cheese
4. Sandwiches
Make America's most popular sandwiches ahead of time and sell them every day.
Most Popular Sandwiches
BLT Roast Beef Sandwich
Turkey Sandwich Grilled Chicken Sandwich
Ham Sandwich
5. Soft Pretzels
From giant soft pretzels to little soft pretzel bites, soft pretzels are cheap to make and make a lot of money. Find the best ideas for soft pretzel dips below.
Soft Pretzel Dip Ideas
Spinach Artichoke Dip
Honey Mustard Beer Cheese
Horseradish with Whole Grain Mustard
Menu Tip: Add a new pre-cooked item to your concession stand's menu and see how well it sells. When you know what your customers like to buy and how much, you can pre-cook with more confidence.
What makes the most money at a concession stand
Ideas for Snacks You Can Buy
Hershey's Reese's and Kit Kat candy bars on display at a snack stand
With store-bought food, you can feed the most people for the least amount of money. We did the research and made lists of the most popular brands and flavors of snacks. Just take these things off the shelf and give them to your customers.
Most Well-Known Candy
Offer the top five candies in the United States at your concession stand:
M&M's \sSkittles
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are a kind of candy.
Starburst Twizzlers Most Popular Soda
The polls are in, and these are the soda flavors that your customers like best:
Coca-Cola Diet Coke
Most Popular Candy Bars Pepsi Mountain Dew Dr. Pepper
Find out which candy bars sell the most in America: What makes the most money at a concession stand
Most popular chewy candy is Hershey's Bar, Snickers, Kit Kats, Twix, and 3 Musketeers.
The most popular brands of chewy candy will fly off the shelves of your concession stand:
Sour Patch Children
Gummy bears and Swedish Fish.
Sour Gummi Worms
The most popular gum is Fruit Gummy Rings.
Americans ranked the following as the most popular flavors of chewing gum in a 2020 study:
Spearmint \sPeppermint
Wintergreen / Winterfresh Fruit Flavors Cinnamon
Concession Stand Menu Tip: If you sell bottled drinks like water, iced tea, and lemonade at a lower price than other food vendors, people will come to your stand instead. If you sell food, making a drink deal and giving customers a bottle of water with their meal is a great way to stand out from the crowd.
Whether concessions are set up on-site or off-site
French fries of different sizes stacked next to each other
If you're trying to decide where to prepare your concessions, we've listed the pros and cons of both on-site and off-site preparation to help you decide. You should also think about where you are and what your customers want. For example, if your concession stand is at a sporting event, your customers will want to get back to their seats quickly, so you should focus on snacks that are already made.
Pros and cons of preparing concessions away from the event site
When you sell concessions that have already been made, you don't need as much equipment at your stand. If you don't have much room, preparing your food ahead of time at a commissary kitchen can help. You can sell more products if you don't have to spend as much time cooking them on the spot.
Even though having food already made saves time on-site, it also comes with some risk. Before you open your store for the day or evening, you need to guess how much you can sell. If you don't know what your customers want, this risk could lead to too much production and waste.
Cooking to order at your concession stand has both pros and cons.
Because made-to-order food is fresh and real, you can charge more for it, and people are more likely to buy from you again if you have something unique to offer. Also, cooking to order means you won't have any extra food at the end of the day, so you'll waste less food.
What makes the most money at a concession stand
Not much is at stake when you sell food to order, but it can be harder to make money. Because you have to spend more time getting ready, you are likely to sell fewer items, and the extra cost of buying equipment cuts into your profit margin. Also, you might need to hire a small staff or work with a partner to keep up with customer orders.
Most Profitable Snacks to Sell: What makes the most money at a concession stand?
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