Why do people get so excited over a jacket potato cart?

@CountryQueen I took a photo a year back of people queuing outside Nandos in a Cardiff shopping centre. I posted it on Facebook at the time because I couldn't believe it.

I’ve had his jacket potato and it’s erm… a jacket potato 😂 we didn’t queue or get up early and it was just the same as any other.
I’ve got no idea why people travel for miles and queue for it, absolutely insane.

There’s a few but spud bros are the preston ones

They don’t. Do they?

Garlic ! I can’t stand it, let alone on a nice buttery jacket !!

..

We were in a car/van dealership in Preston this week and the sales manager got all excited about the men filming themselves in the lot. Then then told us they were "the you tube famous spud men". I am nearly 50, don't watch you tube etc and was clueless. I said they probably here wanting free stuff for likes. Turns out the dealership were giving them a free pickup to pull their spud van. Some expensive Isuzu. The manager in the garage was all fawning. Put us off buying the vehicle we were looking at. Then this thread popped up and I am assuming its the same lot....unless there are more spud people out there. Can't see this being a forever thing.

Sorry.

When magners came out ( or at least was reinvented ) about 18 yrs ago so well before sm, I worked in a big student union bar , we had a huge promotion on .
To start with , reps from magners came round on a Friday and Saturday afternoon and were handing out plastic pint glasses full to over the brim with ice and then pouring in about a third of a 500ml bottle of magners .
Everyone was clamouring to get some , but it was free so that's ok, right ?
However when the reps left we then sold it prepared the same way Friday and Saturday evening and Sunday daytime.

We were charging more than the price of a proper pint of Strongbow for about a quater of a pint of freezing cold watered down cider .
The promo was meant to last untill the Tuesday evening but we sold out by late Sunday afternoon.

It baffled me completely !

I'm still in awe of whoever it was at Magners cider in the 2000s who decided that it should be marketed over a pint glass of ice cubes. Same old product, new gimmick, wild success.

It's definitely teenagers on social media convincing us all. We've had to go to the USA recently, for work and a bit of a hol, in california we got an in n out burger and in florida I was told I "MUST" get something called raising canes because it was all over tik tok and everyone loves it.
The burger was a burger, raising canes was chicken nuggets and oven chips. Massive disappointment all round.

It's the same as the viral potato people, don't get me wrong, I love a potato but you can't turn it into something else can you, it's always gonna be a potato.... you've almost got to admire the social media smarts of the people who can turn these things into a craze. It's kind of incredible! I wonder what else they can do it with, if they can turn humble jacket potatoes into a thing (Don't get me started on humble crumble - it's not even a proper crumble, they just sprinkle the crumble on top!)

Yes have to agree you are a weirdo with the choice of filling and no cheese 😮 😆 well if I am passing that way I shall definitely stop over jacket potato and doughnuts for pudding sounds like a perfect late lunch

I used to get a jacket potato at a potato van in Covent Garden I seem to remember paying £2.50 and my nanny thought this was extortionate. I loved it with butter, cheese, sour cream and chives

so glad I no longer low follow a low carb diet

My late mum (war baby) used to go into the local cafe as a child to order a plate of mushy peas as a treat.

Not sure they could stretch to a potato.

I'm late 50s was born and brought up in Gowerton and it's high street has always looked run down. I was told the now closed LN pub had sawdust on the floor to soak up the blood from fights and it was just as well the chip shop had a wall so that the kids had somewhere to hang out in the village. Although my parents still live there I have not walked to the shops in Gowerton for over 30 years.

However the mobile spud man in Swansea city has been there for many years and I noticed the other day a plain spud is £2. It's massive and he doesn't known when to stop piling on toppings either.

Many years ago I used to buy a hot jacket potato from a mobile cart that used to be in the middle of the street market. They were just a little one man band thing,that he would wheel in and they were lovely big spuds I would get one with butter, cheese and sweetcorn on . They were quite reasonably priced I remember and you could smell those delicious hot potatoes all down the street, it would make you feel hungry so you just had to get one. I wouldn't pay for these new trendy expensive ones though.

@Mummaduck82 , I agree, ticktock has boosted his profile but him and his family have been on that pitch for many many years so he has to be doing something right.

And as i said up thread I agree he raises lots for charity.

He sounds nice this man ! At least it’s not junk
food and people seem to like it.
The power of the internet eh!

Not everyone who get excited over a spud van are morons. i have watched spudman on tiktok since the start of covid. and now he has 4.2 million followers, from a humble buisiness owner to global stardom - yes global because people flock to him for him not just his food, yes it used to be tinned - because he didnt have the facility to cook home made and now hes purchasing another new trailer . but Also he is a lovely man, will chat to anyone and everyone who turns up, he has kidney failure and has done so much for fundraising,

I live in gloucestershire and yes i have visited his van in staffordshire , So what, did it hurt anyone else? no , does my watching his videos hurt anyone ? no. let people like what they like and move on, i bet people get excited over videos on exercise/cooking/gardening/homesteading and not all people are a fan of those ,
not everyone likes what others like, it's what makes us different.

Because a surprising number of people are complete morons. Once you realise this, it’s actually quite freeing as it explains quite a lot about life.

Well I’m a weirdo who loves a tuna jacket but I don’t like cheese with tuna so it was tuna and sweetcorn for me and my husband and son both had chilli and cheese. We queued for 15-20 mins, the jackets and fillings were huge, I can’t remember what we paid but I remember thinking it was reasonable and not overpriced. He’s in the centre of Tamworth, easy to find. I wouldn’t make a special journey but would go again if it was a convenient stopping point. Oh and there was an amazing donut place by the shopping centre where was had some yummy calorific donuts for pudding.

Im from Preston and so are the Spud Bros and I take my hat off to them! They’ve built this massive thing, they give back to the community, the huge queues are fun with entertainment and the boys buy food from the nearby doughnut seller and falafel guy to give to those waiting, it’s an amazing achievement and I applaud them! And also, it’s really a lovely jacket spud!

tell us more what filling did you have ?

I am just looking up where Tamworth is and how to get there

We went to the spudman in Tamworth as it was a convenient stopping point for lunch on the way to our holiday accommodation. My son is a fan. I joined the queue grumbling about the size of it but oh my goodness - my jacket potato was the nicest I’d had in years. Prices are reasonable, staff are friendly, well worth the hype! Oh and my son got a selfie with the spudman so he was happy.

We went to Amsterdam last year and there was a shop selling stroop waffles that my son told me we had to go to as they were viral on TikTok, utter rip off and only ok. The next day we went to a different waffle shop, paid less and it was much nicer! My son learned a valuable lesson

What’s a jacket potato cart?

never heard of this.

I know what you mean. I read an article in a newspaper s few months ago about a man in Tamworth, can't remember his name,who has a jacket potato stall, and people travel for miles to buy one! If I recall correctly, someone had travelled 120 miles! And people were queueing for up to 3 hours! Utter madness in my opinion. I mean I love a jacket potato, especially with tuna,but no way would I travel miles or queue for hours to get one!