Food trucks, packed with pricey cooking gear and tech like iPads for POS systems, are sadly prime targets for thieves and vandals. Their high value draws bad actors, as seen in the infamous taco truck theft that sparked an hour-long police chase from Salinas to Monterey. This incidents plague owners nationwide. Take, for example, a Satay truck that vanished only to mysteriously reappear in Maryland. Stories like these aren’t rare across the country. Unfortunately, food trucks can be prime targets for thieves, cash-heavy operations often parked in unsecured locations with little oversight. This underscores just how critical it is to [...]

After 20+ years in the food truck business, both building and maintaining these mobile kitchens, I've seen firsthand what winter can do to a food truck that isn't properly prepared. Here in the northern states, winter isn't just a slow season – it's a serious challenge for your equipment. I'm going to share my personal insights on how to protect your investment during those cold months. The Reality of Winter Storage Let me be straight with you: storing a food truck for winter isn't as simple as parking it and walking away. I've had customers come to me in spring [...]

As a mobile food vendor, the investment in a truck or trailer is the biggest one-time business expense you'll make. Selecting the wrong vehicle can cost considerable time, money, sanity, and even the viability of your business if ongoing maintenance is too high. This is not a decision to be taken lightly! At M&R Specialty Trailers and Trucks, we understand the warning signs you need to look for to protect yourself from investing in a lemon. This post can help avoid these pitfalls when evaluating the purchase of a food truck on a website like eBay, Craigslist, or any other [...]

Want to understand what type of gas mileage you'll get with a food truck? As a truck owner, fuel costs are a crucial part of your daily expenses and can greatly affect your weekly budget. If you're new to the business, it's important to understand what these costs might look like for you. In this article, I share insights into the amount gas you'll need to operate a food truck for transportation and generator operation. Of course, how much gas a food truck requires to operate will depend on the type of weight, distance, and driving conditions you go through. [...]

A portable or mobile toilets are ideal for special events like concerts, fairs, rallies, parades, city events, and huge outdoor gatherings where no other facilities are available. The majority of portable toilets are unisex single units with a simple door lock for privacy. Several varieties are self-contained and do not involve any pre-existing utilities or infrastructure, such as sewerage. If you need custom-built mobile restrooms, contact us at 904-397-0246 or by email here. We offer no obligation quotes and can build mobile restrooms to the exact specifications you require. High-end or low-cost facilities, we have experience with both. Mobile restroom trailers [...]

Researching the best type of flooring install inside your food truck or concession trailer? In today's post, we address everything you need to consider before investing in the floor of your food truck. In addition to sharing the best options, we layout some of pitfalls to watch out for with the most popular food truck flooring types. At M&R Specialty Trailers and Trucks, we've been manufacturing concession trailers for over 15 years and have worked on literally hundreds of concession units during this time frame. After working on so many of these units and even making repairs to concession trailers [...]

When outfitting a food truck, a lot of the same commercial equipment you would use in a coffee shop or restaurant can be installed in a mobile unit. But there are some pieces of equipment you should never be taken from a restaurant and installed onto your food truck. One example of this is with the exhaust hood. An exhaust hood, sometimes called a range hood, is the device that's positioned directly above your oven and cooking area to provide ventilation. This piece of equipment removes smoke, airborne grease, and other fumes from the food truck. Exhaust hoods also have [...]

Rotolo's Food Truck. No matter what your food concept is going to be, you'll probably need at least one refrigerator installed on your food truck or concession trailer. Whether you're making sandwiches and need to keep meats and cheeses cool or plan to serve summer-time beverages you'll need a cooling system that's both reliable and large enough to store everything necessary to execute your menu. Finding the right refrigerator for a food truck is different than if you're starting a restaurant. If you're looking for commercial-grade restaurant refrigerators you'll have an abundance of quality options. Refrigerators designed to [...]

In our on-going series about food truck equipment, we’ve come to one of the more basic build-out topics: concession doors. As you might imagine this is a more straight-forward consideration compared to other areas like plumbing, electrical, or the kitchen layout. Still there are some common-sense guidelines we can offer on the topic if you plan to install a door in the future to ensure the project is done right the first time. As we’ve mentioned in previous posts in this series, we’ve been manufacturing food trucks and concession trailers for over 15 years. In our decade and a half [...]