Banana Costumes For Halloween

Food costumes like the banana costume are often used as mascots for advertising restaurants, festivals and many other food oriented events.  A great example of a banana costume being used as a mascot for a restaurant is on “The Great Food Truck Race” hosted by Tyler Florence.  The show premiered on August 15, 2010 on The Food Network.

The race consists of seven different food trucks that are competing for the grand prize of $50,000.  The race, which started in California, will move across the country cooking, promoting and selling their creations from their food trucks.

Adult Banana Costume>>

Each teams goal for each episode is to make as much money as possible.  The team that makes the least amount of money goes home.  Everyone else, drives on to the next episode and challenge.

As with all Food Network Challenges, there are rules.  Thankfully, there is only one rule, but it’s a big one.  Each challenge, the teams will start out with a limited budget.  With this small amount of money, they must purchase ALL ingredients and supplies, before they can even start making money.  You need to also remember, they are in a new city and have to “find” the right ingredients first.

<<Plus Size Banana Costume

Once they finally find a good spot to park their food truck and sell their creations, they have to promote it and let people know they are there.  There are no rules on how to promote your truck and food.  On the premiere, it was simply put, “promote any way you can”.  In other words, be creative in your advertising and just get the job done!

So, how does “The Great Food Truck Race” have anything to do with a banana costume?  Well, one of the seven food truck teams is the Nana Queens from Culver City, California.  The idea and food truck was established by Janel Prator, which later teamed up with her sister, Shanel Prator and hometown friend, Rick Wilson.  Savory and sweet was taken to a new level, the road.  What apparently started as just an experiment, turned into their specialties, banana pudding and wings.

Teen Banana Costume>>

Remember when I mentioned the teams were allowed to promote their trucks any way they could to get the job done? Well, the Nana Queens did just that.  After finally getting set up and running in a potentially prime spot at a festival, the banana costume appeared.  Rick Wilson, the Nana Queens partner, came busting out of the food truck in a banana costume.  He, and the costume, were used to promote their banana pudding creations.  It was certainly a fun and interesting way to step up their sales.  The team had already battled through some challenges just to get running smoothly and they needed the added attention!

<<Baby Banana Costume

Was the banana fruit costume enough for the team to drive on to the next city and challenge?  Well, it certainly did help in drawing attention and sales for their banana pudding and wings, however it simply was too late to recover.  The team had so many challenges getting started and even selling anything, that the costume just wasn’t enough.  They were, in fact, sent home after the first road trip.

“The Great Food Truck Race” didn’t work out as well for them as they hoped and they didn’t win the $50,000 grand prize.  However, I’m guessing that their banana pudding, wings and the banana costume received a warm welcome home.