Area entrepreneur opens combo geological services/food truck

CALGARY, Alberta – Food trucks and food kiosks are commonplace along Calgary’s busy Stephen Avenue Mall, along with a variety of restaurants, pubs, and lounges where you can get everything from a simple $4 hotdog to a 5-star, $100+ seafood feast. What more could anyone ask for along the bustling pedestrian strip? Well, how about 2 scoopfuls of while-you-wait geological services, with a healthy side of one of the tastiest smokie and french fry combos around?

That’s right. In truly a first of its kind, area entrepreneur, petrophysicist, and self-proclaimed foodie, Aaron Boondoggle, modified a food truck to provide geological services including log characterization, thin section/core plug cutting and analysis, and even some geophysics cross-section analysis. But what set’s Mr. Boondoggle’s enterprise apart from its competition is that he doesn’t charge you a penny for the food, as long as you hire him to pick tops off of your log suite.

Although I am an oil and gas professional with extensive petrophysical experience in the patch, I have always loved food, so I figured why not combine both passions and make some money along the way? Unfortunately, my first foray into the food truck industry was a complete failure, and I actually got myself in trouble with law enforcement, but I learned a good lesson from that experience.

Aaron’s first food truck business attempt involved him driving around residential neighbourhoods, particularly near primary and secondary schools, giving away free candy and pamphlets to get younger children interested in the petrosciences.  But complaints from area parents had him shut down in a matter of hours.

Mr. Boondoggle’s new venture, aptly named Loggy Dog, has a significantly better image as he parks his modified vending vehicle along Stephen Avenue Mall. One side of the truck features the petrophysical services and the other fires out some of the tastiest street food along the strip. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he offers buy 2 services and get one for free. And you can pick between 2 log characterizations and 1 thin section cut, 3 core plug cuts, 1 geophysics cross-section analysis with 1 log analysis and 1 well location pick, the choice is yours. But where the real value comes in is with the food, especially considering that it is free with any petrophysical service purchase.

Yep, this guy is really onto something here. Imagine this, it’s Thursday coming up to lunch time, and I need a few thin sections cut and analyzed for a 2:30 meeting. So I head down Stephen with my cores, stop at Loggy Dog, have my thin sections cut and analyzed while chowing down on a habenero double-dog and silly fries – all during a short wait. It really doesn’t get much better than this.

 

I’ll be telling everybody I know about this place. You know it.

When traditional food truck vendors were asked about the new kid on the block, Loggy Dog, very few had kind words to say.

You want to know what I think of that truck? Yes? Okay. That Loggy guy can go hump himself, that mother bastard. How can I make money next to a guy who gives his food away?! I know he makes money on the other side of his truck, but he should ask people for some money for food so that guys like me can stay in business.

 

Since he started to park his truck on this block, my revenues have been cut in half, and they continue to go down – and he has only been here for 2 weeks. If you go back to see him, tell him Mohammad says, “You mother jerk!”

Only time will tell how successful Mr. Boondoggle will be with his Loggy Dog food/petrophysical services mobile enterprise. But one thing is for sure, his truck continues to draw record lineups and generate some pretty rave reviews.