German Ingenuity + Gastronomical Creativty = Profits

“There are guys walking around Germany with gas grills strapped to them – its crazy.” And when I say “crazy” I mean “profitable”. The New York Times recently reported on the phenomenon of wandering grillwalkers in Berlin’s highly travelled Alexanderplatz. Bertram Rohloff, an unemployed hotel manager was not going to take his situation laying down. Instead, he sprang to his feet, hitched a grill around his waist and made off for a good day’s work. The result? A booming business with 15 employees and a healthy profit margin.

“Der Bauchladen” – a Time-Tested Tradition

American visitors to Germany might be dismayed when going to the cinema and finding an unusual pause between the commercials and the start of the movie. In many Kinos (cinemas) you can still find a salesman/woman walking down the isles during the intermission selling everything from sweets and ice-cream and popcorn to sodas and beer (yes, beer – this is Germany, after all) right from their Bauchladen (literally, “stomach store”). This is standard point-of-sale marketing bringing the product to the customer in his/her time of greatest want/need. So why not bring that same customer lunch on his way between meetings on the open street?

Good ideas are never easy to come by – but ingenuity and creativity matched with good old-fashioned hard work and a focus on the basics often prove profitable – even in (especially in) tough market times. Hats off, Mr. Rohloff!