They may be new to the Minnesota State Fair, but Chris Taylor and his sons hope to make a lasting impression as one of the new food vendors at the 2022 Great Minnesota Get Together that begins Thursday.
Their business, Waffle Chix, is known for their signature homestyle seasoned chicken wrapped in a baked waffle on a stick, the breakfast sausage wrapped in a waffle on a stick, and for dessert lovers, there's also the waffle-wrapped browning on a stick.
"We have maple syrup and buffalo wing sauce as condiments," Chris Taylor said. "For the waffle-wrapped brownies, there's chocolate syrup and powdered sugar."
Waffle Chix started in 2017 when a family friend, who was in the concession stand business, approached Taylor about working on a new concept they had developed.
Taylor, who was a sales manager at a manufacturing company before Waffle Chix, and his sons decided to give the opportunity a shot.
"We started out with a lot of small to medium-sized regional events including small state fairs and larger county fairs," he said. "We had quite an extensive schedule of about 16 events in our first couple of years, but the COVID-19 pandemic made it a little rough through 2020 and 2021."
Waffle Chix
Fortunately, their product spoke for itself receiving awards and gaining recognition from the state fairs in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Oklahoma. They've even been featured on Carnival Eats, which airs on the Cooking Channel.
It's all lead to the 2022 Minnesota State Fair.
"The Minnesota State Fair is one of the crown jewels of the schedule for any vendor," Taylor said. "By adding the Minnesota State Fair, we've eliminated a few of the smaller fairs because we want to do our best job and the only way we can do that is to have the proper staff at each large event."
According to Taylor, the Minnesota State Fair continues to be the talk of vendors across the country not just because of the large crowds, but because of the demand for new foods and the spotlight they grab.
"You go to Oklahoma or Texas, they all want to brag about the Texas State Fair drawing over 2 million people, more than the Minnesota State Fair they say. But, they forget the Minnesota State Fair will get 2 million people in 12 days and the Texas State Fair will take 24 days to get the same amount of people."
Waffle Chix hopes to get another trailer at the Minnesota State Fair, but instead of chicken and waffles, the second trailer would be home to rattlesnake and alligator corndogs.
"As far as I know, we're the only company in the country that serves rattlesnake corndogs," added Taylor. "Rattlesnake meat made into a delicious bratwurst-style sausage. We make that into a corndog and serve it with a special sauce called venom sauce."
Once the Minnesota State Fair ends, Waffle Chix will head to the Oklahoma State Fair from September 15-25, the Tulsa State Fair from September 29-October 9, and the North Carolina State Fair October 13-23.
