We've decided to only sell Pepsi products because my wife Rose's father Don Ebner worked at Pepsi and we're a Pepsi family. I never got to meet my father in-law Don, but have enjoyed hearing some of the stories about him. One of the favorite family stories was that when Don worked at Pepsi in Canton back in the 60's & 70's, he was the employee that wore the Mountain Dew costume as a part of Pepsi's promotional program. I've joked with my wife that she had a little Hillbilly in her family as a result of that story.
We have other reasons to promote and enjoy Pepsi too! When we first contacted Pepsi to see if we could get support to sell their products with tools like Pepsi coolers, banners, signs, and maybe even a Pepsi machine while we are at events promoting our Towpath Trail Snack Shack, we were told that we had to have two years of food service industry and vending experience, but due to the uniqueness of our business in regard to being on the Towpath Trail, they waived it to three months. We were told to keep records for three months and when we sold more than 18 Pepsi products daily to call back in the Fall! After we got off the phone, we joked that my cousin Roger Knight who's involved in our family business drank 15 Pepsi's a day, so we should only have to sell three ;)
As luck would have it, we received another call the following Monday from Pepsi. At first I thought they didn't do a good job of recording keeping since we had already talked to them the previous Friday. In short order we were interviewed in more depth about our mobile Towpath Trail Snack Shack business and told to expect a call within the next couple days from the local distributor and that Pepsi was indeed interested in our Towpath Trail Snack Shack & Peace Park project.
The following day, we got the call first thing in the morning! Early in the conversation he asked if "that was our brown trailer" at the 12' 6" low Wheeling & Lake Erie railroad bridge in Bolivar, which I retorted "yes, how did you know it was brown" and he responded "I drive by there almost daily on my way to work". After listening to the story about how I acquired the property from my mother and was searching for an opportunity to create a couple jobs for our family and knew that not only did we own a little section of the Ohio & Erie canal, but the Greenville Peace Treaty line crossed the towpath on our property, and also that intersection by the bridge also represented the entire history of America's communication & transportation industries! Fort Laurens was referred to within the treaty and it's only about 1.5 miles to our east on the towpath trail and that we saw an opportunity to tie the history together at our location thus encouraging people biking or hiking into Tuscarawas county to go that extra distance to vist Ohio's only Revolutionary war fort.
The Pepsi distribution center representative Jim then told us about all the Pepsi products available and that he'd be happy to work with us starting out as a seasonal vendor and the minimum 1/2 pallet we'd need to order on a schedule.
We are excited to have the opportunity to promote Pepsi and their beverage products and look forward to our future on the Ohio & Erie canal towpath trail!
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