lemonade_stand.jpg

There has been much uproar about the Multnomah County Health Department’s attempted shut-down of seven-year-old Julie Murphy’s lemonade stand during Last Thursday, last Thursday [as covered in yesterday’s Good Morning News]. Everyone seems appropriately up in arms, and the Health Department has even apologized.

But as a food critic, I don’t think I’m remiss in saying the most important point in this story has been completely missed. The bigger outrage here can be summed up in two words (one of which is hyphenated for effect): Kool-Aid Lemonade.

I would like to offer little Miss Murphy my professional opinion, and a few suggestions, after the Jump!

As a budding entrepreneur, you should learn to better understand your market. This kool-aid crap might fly in Oregon City, but you were doing business on Alberta. Those hippies abhor corporate/branded anything. While I respect the business acumen of attempting to exploit the “cuteness” loophole in the Multnomah County health code, you just can’t be profitable by selling piss and calling it gold. Sure, it works for Kombucha but they’re a special case.

This is Portland, home of the uber-foodie. If you want to make a buck you’re going to have to put in the work. Your first step should have been to plant a lemon tree. I realize you would have had to do this when you were two, but Lee Iacoca sold his first Chrysler when he was still in the womb. What’s your excuse?

You should have also taken pains to have your lemons certified organic by the USDA. You should have squeezed them yourself. You should have sweetened it with agave. And you should have transported it to Alberta via bicycle.

It sounds like a lot of work. It is. That’s why you get your mom to do it for you, or just say you’ve done it. All that work, either real or imagined, provides your product with the all-important “story of origin,” which causes food writers like me to fall all over themselves trying to provide breathless and adoring coverage. I am breathless and adoring just thinking about what you could have accomplished.

Worried we food writers might find out your lemonade isn’t really all that good? Don’t. We’re usually too drunk to notice these things, and besides: our palates are too blown out from eating boatloads of foie and pork-belly terrines to be of any real use. It’s all about the story.

What do you get for that story? You get the privilege of mark-up. You see, selling swill at 50 cents a pop isn’t the worst idea. Many businesses have gone very far selling crap at rock bottom prices to hungry rubes. Have you ever heard of McDonald’s? But the people you really want to exploit are the people with money. Believe me when I tell you that you could have sold your organic farm-to-table, fresh-squeezed, agave-sweetened, bicycle transported lemonade for at least $1.75 per 8 fluid ounces. It’s in them liberal-white-guilt hills that the cash truly flows, my dear. When you add the cuteness factor to all that, then you can expect an addition to your Barbie Malibu dream home in no time (not to mention the car, and a drunken Ken who has five martini breakfasts because he feels worthless when he thinks about how successful you are).

Yes, you can call me a cynical bastard. Hell, you call a pig a pig don’t you? But surely I’m no more cynical than the jerks who tried to shut you down. And at least I’m being helpful.

You’re welcome.

14 replies on “Your Lemonade Sucks! OR How to Run a Successful Lemonade Stand in Portland: A Guide for Seven-Year-Old Entrepreneurs”

  1. Meh. Maybe the downtown crowd wants its fresh-squeezed organic goodness, but plenty of neighborhood (kool-aid) lemonade stand entrepreneurs appear to be doing good business this summer in Hollywood, Hawthorne, and in all the neighborhoods the surround Alberta. My kid has probably spent $8 or $9 of his own money on the stuff this year. Sure, he probably just wants to get a break from pushing uphill on a bike ride, but as long as he shares, I’m ok with it.

    The bigger question in terms of environmental issues with the Oregon City kid remains: How much CO2 was pumped into the air in order for her to sell her wares on Alberta? None of the stands we’ve hit this summer appeared to have this added cost to the environment. The kids were in front of their own house on their own street. Perhaps they did get a ride to the store to purchase the kool aid, but they might have walked, biked, or the kool aid may have been one of many household purchases. Any way one looks at it, this Oregon City kid is not environmentally friendly.

    Apparently we should boycott her stand.

    Then there’s the economic issue. How much overhead does the drive from Oregon City add to her business? Can she cover those costs? Does her mother recoup those costs, or is she subsidizing this kid? If the kid is being subsidized, doesn’t that go against the whole lemonade-stand-provides-a-lesson-in-independence-etc… reason for this tradition?

    All right. I’m going to stop before I push this too far.

  2. @AlsacePinot

    Well, you know… You see it from your perspective as an eco-nazi and I’ll see it from my perspective as an asshole. Good points all, never-the-less.

  3. HOW COME CUTE LIL GIRLS GET A PASS ON HEALTH CODES? THAT MOTHER SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF HERSELF!!! MAKE THE GIRL AND THE MOM GET FOOD HANDLERS PERMITS AT LEAST!!! AAAAAAH!

  5. Wait till someone gets e coli because a kid doesnt wash his hands before making the lemonade, and then little kids die at the hands of dirty kid. Where will the outrage be directed?!?!?!!!!!1!11!111

  7. If you want to sell lemonade, just add some acai berries. It seems people will buy any old crap at the moment if it has them in it.

  8. How much could you charge for a lemonade served in a paper cup made out of paper recyled paper from prior bullshit citations and warnings from the health code people?

  9. I support the health department, (before they became a bunch of pussies and apologized.)

    If she had wanted to sell lemonade at her own house I wouldn’t have a problem, (I even buy some once in a while.). But she drove 20 miles to the street fair, and then continued to operate AFTER getting a warning. It is obvious to all of us that the parents did more of the work than the kid did, so this has crossed the line from “little girl selling lemonade” to “parents using child as front for their illegally operated business.”

    IRS, child labor laws, etc, etc. The health department problems should be the least of their worries.

  14. Sorry, PAC, but Portland isn’t the home of the uber-foodie. Take your desciption, multiply it by a factor of 1000, and what do you get? Berkeley.

Comments are closed.