Interesting proposition

[lakelady]

I'm looking for some advice/feedback.

My son's best friend loves tomatoes, and for a few years, I've sent him home with bags of them from time to time. Well, his dad runs 3 restaurants in the city (NY) and end of season last year, his son came to my house and said "My dad is begging you to sell him tomatoes for the restaurants, he is crazy about them". I was flattered of course, and forgot all about it. Over the holidays he came over again and said his mom wants me to have dinner at one of the restaurants so I can see the types of dishes they make because they really want to buy tomatoes from me. Okay, so my head is getting bigger now .

I don't farm, even though I always wanted to. I grow about 20 plants (usually more, but I can't have tomatoes all over the yard anymore, so I"m containing them IN the garden). I know how to grow pretty good tomatoes, as most of you do, and we all know harvest is so dependent on many factors. I spend a lot of money on preparing soil, etc., and the thought that maybe I could make a little money to recoup on some of my investments sounds great. I give away much more than we eat since my one son hates tomatoes, and there is only so much my other son and I can eat. So why not sell them instead of giving them away.

There are a lot of things popping into my head. First of all fear, I don't want to disappoint them. Now that I work for myself, I could handle a weekly drop off in the city, or pass them off in town to my son's friend's dad to bring in. How do you package them? I don't have any crates, where would I get them? How much does one charge? What else do I need to know in order to consider doing this? I wouldn't be able to grow enough to supply 3 of them, and they are all different types of foods, one is a steakhouse, the other a burger place, and I forgot what the 3rd is.

Thoughts, suggestions?