In the third year of the ‘Hills Chapter’ funding was becoming more difficult to find so it was decided that we had to raise the shortfall ourselves.
 
Richard Harrington bought our first mixer and robot donut cooker and with advice from Donut King he and Andy Byrne set up the old catering van. Our first catering engagements were the World Scout Jamboree, held at Woodhouse, and the Lobethal Lights.
 
With the assistance of Grant Piggott, Event Services Manager with the Royal Agricultural & Horticultural Society of SA, and because we were both supporters of Operation Flinders, we were one of three groups allowed to cater at the Royal Adelaide Show outside of the normal catering contracts.
 
Our old catering van was very small, so the mixing of the dough had to be done in an annex using a drill and paint stirrer. The van was set up near Side Show Alley and was very noisy.
 
Given the age and lack of facilities in our catering van we were told we could not return the following year unless we purchased a more suitable van.
 
While Richard and Andy were inspecting other catering vans at the Show they came across David Coppack of Café a Go Go, who was very helpful and advised them to visit a builder in Cavan. The club could not afford to have a van built but the builder in Cavan advised Andy how to go about building one himself. In June 2005, Andy commenced construction from the wheels up, and with the help of some other Rotarians and several sponsors completed it in time for the next Royal Adelaide Show. The lino on the floor went down at the Show Grounds just in time to open for business.
 
We were placed at several sites over the years and also came under the control of the catering contractor so our overheads increased dramatically. We also had to upgrade our mixer after a visit from Work Safe SA and the robot donut cooker and drink fridge were also upgraded.
 
Our association with Café a Go Go blossomed during these early years and we eventually moved alongside them and have been at that location ever since.
 
Assistance with the construction of the new van was provided by:
  • Transport Connections
  • Smorgan Steel
  • Pak-Rite
  • Aldoni Transport Engineering
  • Denyer Tanks
  • Plumbtec
  • JR Collins
  • Barker Transport Engineering
  • Lietzke Australia
  • Gilbert Motors
  • Connolly Electrical
  • Pfitzner Furniture
  • Zappia Carpets
  • Howard Silvers Hardware