Bright mid-December sunlight glints off the snow on Aberdeen beach as Cairn Coffee co-owner Rob Hill holds a broken water filter in his hand.
“It froze up last night and the pressure just snapped it,” says Rob, who turns the white plastic block to reveal a crack down the side.
The filter is a crucial piece of equipment at Rob and business partner Sam Coleman’s beachfront coffee trailer and the pair are resigned to a day of maintenance to get it fixed.
For the dog walkers, surfers and other people braving the near zero temperatures on the beach, there will be no warming cup of Cairn’s Italian coffees today.
“We’ll definitely be open tomorrow, though,” Rob says confidently.
‘The surfers still turn up regardless’
Cairn’s filter problem is just one of the minor obstacles facing the hardy community of foot trucks on the Fittie end of Aberdeen beach as snow and ice closed in over the past week.
Thronged with customers in the summer months, when people make a beeline for the eclectic selection of food on offer from the trucks, the crowds thin in the winter.
The recent cold snap, meanwhile, has made a stroll down the beach even less appealing.
But most of Fittie’s food trucks are staying open through the winter, albeit with modified operating hours.
Cairn Coffee, Project Pizza, Food Story and Roots on the Beach – all are open to some extent. There’s still business to be made from regular visitors, and the weekend crowd.
“At the weekend it’s the same as in the summer,” says Cairn’s Rob. “And the surfers still turn up regardless.”
Fifty metres up the beach, Luke Lockley is snug and warm inside the Roots truck. The deep fat fryer bubbling away in the corner blasts out a near 200-degrees-celsius wall of heat, in stark relief to the snowy scenes outside.
“It’s the best place to work in Aberdeen,” says Luke as he cooks up an order of plant-based burgers and loaded fries for a group of customers in scarves and wooly mittens. The food is a specialty of the house at Roots, which makes vegan alternatives of takeaway staples.
Luke started working at the truck in July when the weather was a lot warmer.
“It’s the polar opposite in winter,” Luke says. “But I’m ok in here.”
Always stay close to the grill
Across the city in Garthdee, Carly Dickins tells a different story.
The 22-year-old works at the Northern Lights food trailer outside B&Q in the south of Aberdeen.
The trailer is a lot bigger than Luke’s beach truck so there are plenty of cold spots. What’s more, much of the heat from the grill escapes out of the open hatch.
“You can’t feel your toes even if you’ve got, like, 30 pairs of socks on,” says Carly.
What about her fingers?
“I can’t feel them, either.”
The warmest spot is at the grill, so Carly and her two colleagues take turns cooking.
They try to divvy up the dishwashing equally, too, but as that’s done in the coldest part of the truck no one’s as keen to take responsibility.
Still, Carly enjoys working through the winter, even though it means arriving in the dark for her 8am shift.
She’ll be working Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, too, but she doesn’t mind. She did it last year and enjoys the festive buzz.
“People are in a much better mood at this time of year,” she says. “You get the occasional grumpy guts, but it’s smiles all round most of the time.”
Keep Aberdeen food trucks running through the holidays
Back down on the beach, Rob and Sam from Cairn Coffee have trimmed their opening hours over the winter to close at around 5pm. As in the summer, Cairn only operates on Thursday through to Sunday.
But it will be open Boxing Day. And also for New Year’s Day rush when Rob and Sam say the beachfront is packed full of people keen for a bracing new year walk.
As for how to avoid a repeat of the frozen water filter, the pair are considering their options.
“We might have to get a heater in overnight,” Rob says. “That should keep it warm.”
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