Great Responses from all. After carefully reading and re-reading the posts, I've arrived at these conclusions:
A. To borrow a line from Clint Eastwood,
a man gots to know his limitations. I guess a gut check on skill level is a good starting point. It would be best to offer only a couple, maybe three types of meats. Stick with what you do best in the beginning. In my case, that would mean staying away from ribs (too much variance in the quality of the outcome).
B.
Don't give it away. Set your price, and and stick to the contract. (Downpayments, amount of food, serving time and so on)
C. Know your
local regs/laws. My brother in Tenn tells me anyone can set up a roadside shack and sell Q without much fuss from the Health Dept. Others report that where they reside that if you are cooking on-site (private property) that the Health Dept has no authority. Where I happen to be, they are sticklers for a commercial kitchen or the right to use one -goes to dishwashing. It don't matter where you are in the County, they got the authority and the manpower to enforce it. A 3-hole sink with on-demand hotwater heater like I see mounted as an option on the Klose pits would satisfied the folks here.
D.
Know what gigs not to get involved with. I was asked if I would smoke a couple of whole pigs at a wedding reception last summer. I thanked her for thinking about me but declined cause I don't have the equipment and on top of that I've never done one personally. I've seen it done, they look pretty forgiving to me
E. Develop a system and stick with it, call it
organization. Back in the day when I was commanding troops, the "backwards planning" method was widely used. To apply those principles to the task at hand you would start the timeline when the event was to start and go from there. Event start (Plug in the time) start the cook (plug in the time), setup (plug in the time), arrive at site( plug in the time), you get the picture.
Anyone have anything to add?