About Me
Hello, My name is Derrick, and first I would like to start off by telling you a little about me and what got me to where I am now. I grew up in a small city called Mansfield, Ohio. It hosted major companies like Craine Plumbing, The Ohio Brass, Westinghouse and General Motors Stamping Plant...to name a few. I started off with my first job around 15, cutting grass after school with a man named Daniel Barnhill (thanks for the job.) After doing that for a couple summers I started working with a group of contractors in downtown Mansfield remodeling old buildings I did that for a short while and decided to start driving forklifts. I did that for 12 + years bouncing from factory to factory. My dream always was to work for me.
Somewhere around the beginning winter of 2009 I was employed as a forklift operator for an automobile production company. It was due to close its doors more sooner than a lot of people anticipated. I knew this would bring on financial obstacles which I was far from prepared for, so in the process of carrying on my daily work duties at the plant I would try to figure out what my next move should be. I had to take into consideration that I did not have a college degree to fall back on, that the money in my savings account would only get me so far and I was running out of time fast. My girlfriend told me not to worry, that something will come my way and everything will be ok.
Time passed the plant closed and me and my girlfriend met halfway in our long distant relationship and had moved in together. It was a starting over point considering that the city was new to the both of us. There were more job opportunities here than where I was living so the worry of new employment quickly faded. I took on a forklift job with a major producer and supplier of caulks and adhesives. The pay was good but I still had that desire of wanting to be my own boss tugging at my coattails.
After making a financial move that was to my girlfriends favor she sat back and said "I would like for us to invest in something that will pay us back." We sat and though and made random phone calls to each other throughout the weeks with different ideas we would have pop into our heads. One day we are sitting around talking about her family and how successful her dad had become with both small and large business endeavors. (I've always thought the way to get somewhere is to ask questions and ALWAYS ask someone that is either there or has been there) She told me he had a pizza shop at one time that was very successful and he also ran concession stands. When I asked her what kind she said “it would probably be easier to list what he didn’t sell." She went on to explain that he sold everything from pizza to tacos and even had a couple game trailers. One had a bunch of ducks with numbers one the bottom of them and the other had to do with seeing how fast you could throw a baseball but both had to do with creativity and making money. We decided what we wanted to look into....buying a concession trailer!
Getting Started
First you need to decide on what size unit you want to go with. I started with the 6x12 trailers because of its weight, the distance I was towing it and the cost of the trailers; not to mention I knew I could fit a lot in a little space if, I laid it out right. I searched within an 800 mile radius of my house because of gas prices. I found that GA was the best place. I purchased my first trailer at a place called trailers for less ( www.trailersforless.com ) the prices were right and the customer service was even better. It was a plain trailer that I would have to do everything to such as windows, walls, ceiling, electrical, flooring and plumbing. I knew it was going to be a lot of work but I signed on for it and was more than ready for the task. After I completed and sold my first trailer and made some extra money I looked into getting more for less and decided to go a little further and found a company called www.freedomtrailerllc.com this company lets you design your own trailer with a long list of options such as a few different sizes in windows, doors, cabinets, electrical packages, plumbing packages, wall coverings, flooring, vents, ac units, axels, tongues, lighting….etc. They offered warranties on the work they perform they do quality work and their prices can’t be beat!!!! You can choose to have them do some work and to save you money you can complete your unit yourself.
After you have decided on the unit size and what it is you want to sell/cook the best advice I received was to start small and add items as you go so you don’t overwhelm yourself. Look into new/used commercial appliance wholesalers. A couple good ones I found were www.equippers.com , which I found only minutes away from my home in Columbus, Ohio right downtown on Broad St. then there was www.cincinnatirestaurant.reachlocal.net they have a special section especially for concessions. You may also find some commercial equipment that interest you at www.samsclub.com I recommend purchasing your equipment beforehand because it will come in handy in the setup and layout process of your unit not to mention, the urge to use the equipment will aide in the motivation process.
Once you have decided on a menu and purchased your equipment you now know what size electrical package you will need. I am not an electrician but I knew that I could buy these electrical packages in kits. I found a company that offered them at a pretty penny it came with instructions and I needed all of the help I could get. The shipping was terrible it took too long to get here and the prices were horrible considering what I could have put it together for at www.homedepot.com or even www.lowes.com . They had people there that could help with what I was doing and if you look by some of the checkouts they have a list of contractors you can call to have answer some questions for you for both electrical and plumbing. Again you will have to check with your local health department to see what you are and are not allowed to use, because I know in some places you have to use the GFI outlets which are the outlets with the reset and test buttons on them. Make sure you draw up a diagram using your windows paint or just a plain old piece of paper and a pencil either way; you want to make sure you have something to go by. Measure out how much wire you’ll need. I used a two wire cable (14/2w ground) with a hot neutral and ground wire in it. Draw a diagram depicting where you will have windows a griddle, fryer, door, outlets…etc.
After we had made up our minds as to what we wanted to do my girlfriend nominated me the ugly task of trying to locate us a trailer for what I thought was a pretty ok budget. I quickly learned to the world of carnis and vendors 6k is not a ok budget! I searched site after site and the best luck started with www.amusementtrader.com It is a great site which you will be able to use if you choose to do what I did or purchase a unit. There you can find new or used units for a very reasonable price from private sellers. I didn't have very much luck with it because I waited too late into the season to start looking and by then, all of the lease expensive units were gone. So I continued to search through sites like www.Google.com, www.ebay.com and www.craigslist.com we found a few things but the prices were still a bit too high for us and we didn’t want to do any payments nor financing.
We were sitting around and my girlfriend who has what I thought was entirely too much faith in me said “I bet you could build one for those prices" and it hit us like a ton of nails. We immediately turned our focus towards trailers, materials and the dos and don’ts guidelines through health departments and fire Marshall in our county.
Fire Marshall
I contacted the state fire marshal to see if there had to be any licensed work done on the unit such as wiring installation and venting. He explained that, there were no specifications stating that you had to have a ventilation system or any type of licensed electrical work. KEEP IN MIND these stipulations vary state to state. Be sure to check with your local or even state fire marshal before proceeding because it could/will save you a lot of hassle in the long run. I went with the state fire marshal just in case we wanted to take our unit on the road. In the state of Ohio, you do not have to have a vent even if you’re frying but YOU DO have to have a K-Type fire extinguisher if you are producing grease laden vapors which you can learn more about here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grease_duct . The vent systems most people use is to help keep grease laden vapors down and they also help expel most of the heat produced while cooking.
After you have purchased a trailer the first thing you want to do is strip down the inside of all of the wall coverings that came in it so you can run your wiring. I ran mine underneath the wall and ceiling railings. I have seen some people that have drilled the metal railings holding the unit together and ran their wiring through them. It works as well but be sure to use some sort of rubber grommets or sleeves on your wiring to help prevent the railing cutting through the wiring. Run your wiring to the places you have designated for outlets light fixtures and your breaker box.
After you have run your wiring now is a good time rib your walls with something wider than the ribs the trailer is formed of. I used 4” x ¾” this is handy when it comes to hanging shelves and mounting counters. Hang your paneling I, was going to make a basic refreshment stand so for my wall coverings I chose to go with a nonporous plain white paneling from the www.homedepot.com. I only chose it because I knew I wouldn’t be doing any heavy cooking or creating that much steam. Other than that I would have went with vinyl or metal. The paneling cost about $10/sheet and I used a total of about 12 sheets to do the walls and ceilings. Once you’ve completed your walls and ceilings you will want to hang your gang boxes, breaker box and light fixtures.
Now you’re ready to do your floor. First find a place where you would like to run your power line through the floor and using a hole cutter cut a hole big enough to run your power chord through. You can find a trap door to insert in the hole at just about any RV parts dealer. My go to guy for great name brand parts is located in Indian Lake, Ohio at http://www.rvwholesalers.com/. For the flooring I used simple linoleum from www.homedepot.com that was somewhere around .99/sq. ft. Lay adhesive and lay out your linoleum making sure to roll it out nice and flat using a floor roller.
Once your floor has had a chance to dry it’s time to install your plumbing system. I designed a self-contained water system which included a shurflo water pump 6gal freshwater tank, 10 gal gray water tank, three compartment sink and a separate hand wash sink both with their own chrome covered spigots. In some states the gray water tank has to be a certain percentage bigger than the freshwater tank. You can find that information at your County Health Department.
