h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I heard Chris Evans a few months back going ape over finding out one of his listeners had a mobile chippy . He was so impressed he was going to find out if he could get one and start delivering in his own area.
I can imagine the denizens of Knightsbridge and Chelsea being over the moon with that idea
In rather less posh Oxfordshire, we DO have a chip van that comes round. Thurday nights he sells his wares in our village, stopping for 5 minutes to serve his hungry locals, before whooshing off to the next street and village.
Must be a profitable business because he has recently bought a brand new van, with double range of fryers, and infra-red heated area above for keeping warm, and heating the pies. Mushy peas,curry sauce, onions, wallies, he does the lot.
SLIGHTLY more expensive than the ones in town (10 minute drive away) but who can beat fish and chips delivered to your door, and announcing his presence using Dukes of Hazzard air horns!!

Cod, chips and mushy peas last night ...as it happens

The lemonade man still calls round our street. Brown lemonade is a bit of a local delicacy...

I'd like a mobile supermarket, so that if I need just a few things, I don't need to take a special trip. Of course, it would be a bit too big for the roads, so I propose a Bade-Runner style dirigible floating overhead

Taxis do it, sort of. They are supposed to return to the nearest rank, but often don't get there.

Sort of off-topic, but the taxi driver last night told me that their firm gets a lot of business from people who want an all night McDonalds, and the drive-throughs won't take orders from customers who are on foot. So a lot of people ring a taxi to take them from one side to another.

Hmm, the council keep dropping hints that they're looking to put me out on a medical retirement. A mobile vending business might be just the thing if they do. (Lurks to get some ideas)

I think ice cream vans are a bit different in that they cruise around looking to pick up trade, whereas things like the mobile library and mobile chippy (we used to have both) (not in the same vehicle of course - although that would be cool) operate to some sort of schedule.

We have our milk from the milkman. Costs a lot though.

Mol

A mobile bar?

Or would that create the wrong impression in front of the neighbours?

When I were a lad, there used to be a mobile bread van, a mobile fizzy pop wagon (Corona. Still the best Orangeade I've ever tasted) and even Davenport's mobile beer wagon. Imagine that! Mobile beer!

I saw the mobile beer wagon last week... (it was a woodfords one), as I was walking on the street next to mine... I asked them to call into mine afterwards... they laughed and carried the beer into the pub... I follwed the beer into the pub

We dont' seem to even have mobile milk round here anymore, though, some of the villages near here still do; and the milkman (and I guess milkowmen too), don't just do milk these days, bags of spuds, heavy items like washing powders I think, and other vegetables and soft drinks and stuff..
There used to be a mobile shop near where my Dad lives, but no idea if that is still going; not really like an icecream van though, as I guess It came at a simular time, each week to the same area...

A friend has a mobile fish mongers come to the end of his road once a week; though largely this is the fish monger delivering to the pub, and just picking up local trade at the same time, and again, I guess that must be a scheduled visit
We do have mobile drug dealers frequenting the street a lot, picking up and ropping off at the council run community centre place opposite, though I have no idea if that is scheduled or not
A mobile fish N chip oughta do a blinking great trade roun dhere; I haven't ever eaten fish N chips here, as there are no fish and chip shops... lots of cuisine of various other types, no fish N chip though...
I've seen mobile burger vans, whcih do the night clubs and pubs, kind of follinwg round on a route as each closes and tips out the customers to the welcoming arms of a burger and chips
I'm sure I remember mobile video rental vans years* ago...
There used to be a mobile, well parked up outside, donut van near a supermarket which isn't here anymore... I guess it moved from place to place on differnt days or something... damn.. I'm hungry again now...

When I were a lass, everything was delivered on a 'wagon' as we lived in the back end of no-where.

We had a mobile library, a fresh fish van, a mobile butcher, a general shop thing which was a very cunningly racked out Transit van which sold fresh veg, dry goods, eggs and incidental bits of hardware like nails and masking tape! And never forgetting the Bon Accord lemonade lorry http://retrodundee.blogspot.com/2009/08/lemonade-van.html Every Friday night was a bottle of lemonade for my Mum and a bottle hotly fought over between us 3 as a treat - normally Red Kola but pineappleade was a close second.

In North Am the rise of industrial parks
- where small businesses such as warehousing
distribution and light manufacturing tend
to congregate - fleets of lunch wagons would
regularly circulate on a known route and pull
up at loading docks so employees could make
a selection from the rather limited selection of
sandwiches and pre-made hot dogs and hamburgers.

It was always amazing that while these vehicles
had no cooking capacities they had both hot and
cold storage areas.

A variety of configurations can be seen at:
http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1067&bih=539&q=lunch+trucks+for+sale&gbv=2&oq=lunch+tr&aq=3&aqi=g9g-m1&aql=&gs_sm=c&gs_upl=4003l8924l0l15980l8l8l0l1l1l0l209l1273l0.4.3l7l0


~jwf~

I don't know if it's just because I live in a village, but apart from the mobile chippy detailed earlier, we also have a proper milkman who delivers other essentials as well (providing he has 24 notice he will deliver any groceries), and a mobile dog grooming/washing service.

But although the s are well catered for, no plans as yet for a mobile house.......

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Cathouse-Little-Rock/343617933586

I grew up in a village, too. Milk, papers and post were delivered even before you got up. The baker came twice a week, also providing eggs because he had a yard full of chickens at home. The Corona man came on Thursdays and the library every other Thursday. The International Stores man (Eric, his name was) came on Thursdays, too. My mother always had a list ready with the stuff she would be needing for his delivery the following week.

We never ran out of anything.

Now where I live, occasionally we get people round offering to sharpen knives and scissors.

Here's a suggestion for things people could go round offering: cleaning services. Surely you are always bound to find someone who would be grateful for a spontaneous clean-up in the kitchen, or needing a hand sorting out their loft. Ditto garden services.

By the way, ice cream vans are quite rare in Germany. And they don't play tunes - or make any noises at all. Perhaps they're not allowed to.

We do get a Brezel man comes around at lunch time every Saturday - he rings a really loud bell, like the rag and bone men used to, but haven't seen them for years.

Un I gave up on milk delivered to the doorstep as it kept going sour, especially when a certain extremely fast dairy took them over. I was chucking out most of a pint for every two cuppas. It got ridiculous so I started getting it at the shop instead. It made sense seeing as I kept having to get replacement pints on an almost daily basis anyway.

When I did a short stint white vanning for Amtrack, I noticed that the Kleeneze sellers were taking loads of orders. Not sure how they operate these days but we used to have a man come around with their stuff once a month. I've still got their record brush somewhere, it was the best thing I've ever seen for cleaning vinyl records, much better than a cloth. It must date from the sixties.

I saw on telly the other day a bloke in Tokyo selling live eels from a tub hanging from a yoke over his shoulders. It's still quite commom to see mobile sellers there apparently.

I have vague recollections that someone used to come to my local pub selling cheese from the boot of his car. It was back in my heavy drinking days, hence why the recollections are vague.

Tch! 'common' not 'commom'

Someone earlier mentioned "Prawns, cockles, mussels, whelks". There used to be a gang, half a dozen blokes, that went round Manchester pubs, with trays slung round their necks, shouting that shout, and selling that stuff. Apart from one of their number. He was twice the size of any of the other vendors. Unfortunately, he also had a falsetto voice, and he had decided on his own script. This man mountain would walk into a rough old Manchester pub and proclaim, at least one octave above middle C, in a voice that could strip wallpaper "Seafood!! Seafood!! Seeeeeeafoooood!!".

we have an ice-cream van that comes to our office every day in the summer, no tune though (as TC says - I would guess it's not allowed here) but he beeps his horn when he arrives.

Nobody mentioned the camper vans that park by bridges along the major road through the Lüneburger Heide, so I will. They usually park near bridges and often have either a heavily made up lady* sitting in the front or a car parked next to the van and no lady* sitting in the front. Although I don't think they drive round looking for business so they're not realy mobile vendors in that sense.

*for want of a better word