À La Cart - April Williams

Back at the beginning of 2018, I got an email from a soon-to-be business owner about a project they were working diligently on bringing to Orlando. After meeting with them and hearing about their plans and I was immediately excited about the concept coming to Orlando because I knew the city would embrace it. That concept was À La Cart.

If you aren’t familiar with À La Cart, it’s a local business in the Milk District that marries our love of supporting local food trucks, imbibing in local beer, and enjoying all these things in an inviting and relaxed setting that doesn’t involve eating over trash cans or cancellations due to inclement weather.

Owners of À La Cart, April and Dustin Williams, celebrated the one year anniversary of their business last November, and have since added more buzzworthy food trucks to their ranks, implemented events like beer dinners and weekly movie nights, and heightened the overall experience beyond dining, while solidifying themselves as a popular gathering place in the community. Simply put, it’s a special place run by good people.

While continuing to practice social distancing at this time, I interviewed April via email about the concept, her background, and how they have been navigating the current crisis that is hitting Orlando’s hospitality businesses hard.

LH: What is your professional background? You went from teaching to being an entrepreneur, was that a tough shift for you?  

AW: “Fortunately, I've had a few career paths already. Out of college, I worked as a satellite materials engineer for Boeing in California. For a season, I taught 3-year-olds how to ski in Breckenridge. And, most recently, I was a high school math and science teacher in Washington and Oregon.

The transition from teaching to entrepreneur has actually been more challenging for me than I thought it would be, but incredibly rewarding! While there is some ability to be creative in the classroom, teaching, for the most part, has very structured days. Also, there are a lot of support avenues for teachers, whether it be with the content that you are teaching or administrative issues that arise. Owning your own business, particularly with a start-up, is challenging because there really is no handbook. Each day presents a new and unique set of challenges, and there is little to no structure in how you are supposed to meet those challenges.”

LH: What has been rewarding about running À La Cart?

AW: “It's been incredibly rewarding for me to see something that means so much to me, become something that means so much to many other people too. We always said we just wanted to create a place that we would like to hang out at. Well, over the past year and a half, we have watched that really grow to mean more than we ever envisioned!

To see the community that has grown around À La Cart and within it, and to see what À La Cart means to the community; it's more than just a place to get food and a drink, it's become a place where friends and family gather to celebrate important events in their lives. Goodbye parties, retirement parties, birthday parties (literally ALL ages, we've hosted ages 1 - 70+), wedding rehearsal dinners, wedding receptions, holiday parties, corporate gatherings, church meetups; to see this thing be so much more than we ever envisioned, it's very humbling and overwhelming for me! We have an incredible group of regulars and advocates in the community that support us and love us, and we them love back. At À La Cart, for us, everything is about coming together as a community, with our food vendors, our customers, and greater Orlando; building that community has been very rewarding.”

LH: What gave you the idea to have a gathering place for food trucks with the addition of the beer/bar concept?  How do you select the food trucks you have at A La Cart?

AW: “While teaching in the Pacific Northwest, we would try our best to travel as much as possible. One of our favorite experiences was taking our son to food truck pods in Portland. My husband would get what he wanted to eat, I would get what I wanted to eat, and our son could explore and play in the communal dining areas that were similar to a beer garden; everyone was happy! Additionally, my husband and I have worked just about every job in the foodservice industry, and while living in the PNW I worked at a few breweries and gained a real passion for craft beer. We just got to thinking and talking about how great something like that would be in our hometown of Orlando, a place where friends and family could come together over some delicious food and craft beers.

To select the food trucks, we go through a pretty detailed process. We travel to a lot of food truck meetups all across Florida, from Titusville to Tampa, tasting as many dishes as possible (tough job, I know)! We look at several considerations when selecting our vendors: the quality of the food, their appearance (both the physical truck and the food presentation), their online presence, and also the personalities of the owners, to name a few. We work closely with one another on a daily basis, and it is important for us to find vendors with the right fit for our business. I can honestly say that we love our food vendors both from a business perspective and on a personal level.”

 LH: Having lived in Oregon, what attracted you to start a business in Orlando?

AW: “Personally, this is our hometown; all of our family and long-time friends live here, and we had a toddler who hadn't seen much of his relatives up to that point. From a business perspective, nobody had done a food park in Orlando like the one we wanted to create. We knew that the food truck scene in Orlando was strong, and having grown up here, we felt a community spot like the one we were envisioning would be a good fit in Orlando. We had to work pretty hard to present the City of Orlando the vision we had for our business as well as find the right avenue in actually creating it, but they were supportive of the idea, and we're so grateful they gave us a chance! Orlando is really an exciting place to be right now! There is this real push towards local, "main streets," and there's a great community spirit that has been extremely welcoming to us.”

LH: What has been the biggest eye-opener you've had since you opened A La Cart when it comes to running a small business?

AW: “The biggest eye-opener for me is the sheer amount of time and energy that is required to run the business, particularly when you care about even the smallest detail. I knew this would obviously take a LOT of work, but my husband and I really never turn it off. It's typically the first thing we talk about in the morning and the thing we discuss while going to sleep at night. We absolutely LOVE À La Cart, and we are constantly discussing ways to improve and make it better - for customers, the food vendors, our staff, the environment, the list really goes on and on! Customers often comment about the attention to detail that they see when they are there. Well, that is because we care about every part of the experience, and that takes time. As a result, my current "project" is trying to improve my work-life balance; I know it is extremely important to periodically step back and evaluate priorities and focus on value-added endeavors rather than every single detail! (But it's hard when it's your other baby, you know?)”

LH: How has utilizing social media impacted your business in a positive way?  Do you have a preferred method of communicating with locals where you've seen the greatest return?

AW: “Social media has really been our bread and butter as far as marketing and getting information to our customers goes. We work primarily on Instagram as we believe that is a great way to showcase the À La Cart experience through pictures, and also, we know that is where a lot of people are spending their time these days. It's a bonus that Instagram pairs so easily with Facebook so that we can post to both outlets at the same time. I personally have really grown to like using the story feature as it's a quick and easy way to get time-sensitive information out to customers, such as upcoming specials or events. 

Instagram has really shown us the greatest reward as it's easy for me to quickly respond to questions and messages through DM, and it gives customers a better idea of the food than just a standard menu does. Customers have walked up to the trucks countless times and shown them a picture from their phone saying, "I would like one of these, please." Lastly, many people don't understand what À La Cart really is until they come and experience it in person; by sharing videos and live streams in stories, we are able to give people a better understanding of what we really are.”

LH: A La Cart is a gathering place.  How have you shifted your business to deal with the current health crisis and what valuable information have you learned thus far?

AW: “Yes, as we are all about people coming together at A La Cart, so a pandemic really cuts at some of our core values. We have always taken this virus very seriously, ensuring the safety of our community has to be the top priority for all of us. That being said, getting people good food and good drinks is also very important to us. So, we met with the food vendors early on to discuss everyone's level of comfort and how to continue serving our community. Together we decided to shift to a to-go only model (before we were recommended to do so), we decided to pull our seating, and this is, of course, what we are continuing to practice to this day. It makes a lot of sense for us actually, as the food vendors have always served their food more or less to-go style anyway. At the bar, we have shifted to to-go only meaning selling cans, bottles, and growler fills. 

We continue to learn a lot as we work through this together, but I do think the greatest thing I have learned is just how strong our community is. We have felt supported since day one by our incredible customers and advocates, through their continued patronage still purchasing chicken, burgers, and beers to go. It's been incredible to see the posts on social media like the one that read, "When you can't enjoy À La Cart at À La Cart, you bring À La Cart home with you" coupled with a picture of one of our growlers and a chicken sandwich. We're trying to navigate how to give people some of those same experiences at home, that is why at the bar we have invested in bright, new glassware, new growlers, and exciting beers to give people something fun to look forward to and that same À La Cart experience at home, and why the trucks are introducing some new specials that will give those going stir crazy at home, something to change up their routine. Lastly, we have only dabbled in online sales a few times in the past for events, etc. But given the new state of the world, contactless payments are vital, so this is a new territory that we are using and learning more about daily.”

LH: How can the community best support you now?

AW: “Continue to stay safe, be patient, and stay positive; we will get through this in time and be able to come together again soon. As far as supporting us and our industry specifically, just continue to order to-go food and drinks and practice social distancing when you pick up your order for the safety of staff, other customers, and yourself. We know many people are struggling financially right now, so some cost-effective ways to support local small businesses is to post about them on social media and write positive reviews online.”

Currently À La Cart is open limited hours 12 pm - 8 pm. They are located at 609 Irvington Avenue in the Milk District. Follow their Instagram for more updates.

All images (except for the picture of April) are property of LemonHearted Creative.