The food cart become the latest to open along Sefton Park
16:14, 25 Mar 2026Updated 06:16, 26 Mar 2026
Adam Brice had worked in hospitality for most of his career(Image: Supplied/Adam Brice)
Sefton Park is set to get a one-of-a-kind eatery next month when Aigburth man Adam Brice is set to open a new sandwich cart inspired by his travels around the world. Growing up in Liverpool, his dad’s job in the army saw Adam move all over the world during his early years.
Then, aged 19, he left home and moved to Malaysia to teach sport in an international school. After spending a brief time teaching it was shortly after that he began to pursue a career in hospitality, working in Australia before eventually moving to New Zealand, where the seeds were sown for him eventually opening his own business.
It was while working in one of New Zealand’s “quick service, high volume” major coffee chains that it dawned on him that “specialty coffee doesn’t have to be slow and lingered, you can do it super fast and good”.
After he had come to that realisation years before, it was 18 months ago that he took the leap and opened his first business, Dandy’s, which serves freshly roasted coffee from their two trucks pitched outside of St Michael’s station in Aigburth and Hunts Cross station.
He has been running Dandy’s at St Michael’s and Hunts Cross station(Image: Supplied/Adam Brice)
As he reflects on his time running his first business, he believes that the steep learning curve has given him the encouragement to expand his business even further. He said: “It’s been bumpy, but we’re getting there, and we’ve learned a lot about the nuts and bolts of running a business. Which has led me to then be able to go a bit bigger and a bit harder with this next one, Sando.”
On the back of the success with Dandy’s, Adam was keen to capitalise by branching out and open his first food concept, Sando, which is set to start welcoming customers from April 1. The 1978 Peugeot J7 food truck is set offer cuisines from all over the globe. As the name suggests, their main offering will be sandwiches, but Adam will be making them using homemade Japanese milk bread [also known as shokupan] with fillings including crispy chicken schnitzel and a chimichurri cheese ribeye steak inspired by his travels to Germany as a child.
He said: “The chimichurri cheese steak includes a chimichurri homemade mayo and we use really finely sliced ribeye. I used to live in Germany as well with my parents based there in the army, and there was an Argentinian steakhouse that did this chimichurri dip that was just incredible and forevermore as a family it’s been a sort of staple of our steak nights.”
While he admitted that there is a risk in starting any hospitality business, he said that running his firm from a small converted cart instead of a physical bricks and mortar location comes with some significant advantages.
Adam Brice is set to open Sando on April 1(Image: Supplied/Adam Brice)
He said: “Street trading [having a converted cart] is probably one of the lowest risk entry points to hospitality you can have. If you’re opening in a physical cafe or shop you’re probably four or five times more financially involved than you are with a food trailer.”
Adam’s opening follows a number of food and drinks carts to open around Sefton Park in recent years, including West Coast Coffee, Scottabocca and Loets Coffee. Explaining why he thinks the business model is seeing so much success, especially on Sefton Park, he said: “Since covid happened, we were all in lockdown, we had to be outside and all of the businesses had to close their doors. You couldn’t go in and physically go to a cafe. Loads of people started thinking ‘well hang on, why don’t we just take the cafe to the people instead or the burger shop to the people’.”
He will be serving the sandwiches on Japanese style bread(Image: Supplied/Adam Brice)
However, he also pointed out a huge disparity in price of fitting out a food cart compared to a physical premises. He said that there are some obvious challenges that come with operating a cart. He said: “So, the actual entry cost is a lot less. Obviously, the other side of that is that it’s super difficult. If the van breaks or your generator goes down or any of the other variables happen, you physically have to fix it otherwise you have to close. So, there are two sides to it.”
After working for others and learning the skills of the trade during his younger years, he said that he relishes the opportunity to nurture the hospitality business owners of the future. He said: “Hospitality at the moment, we have to pay our taxes and it’s difficult to keep things afloat. It’s definitely a risk [owning a business]. But the idea that you can be your own boss and you can employ people and you can bring people through like people have brought me through back in the day of their little businesses [is really important].”