What do Ukrainian meals, delicate serve and Thai fusion tacos have in widespread? They’re all served out of vans constructed from scratch in an industrial constructing on Anaheim Avenue subsequent to the Los Angeles River.
“That is the place meals vans are born,” mentioned Martin Ramirez, proprietor of California Meals Vehicles.
Over the previous 15 years, he’s quietly had a hand within the success of some beloved native companies and main companies. He’s constructed customized tasks for the Lengthy Seaside dessert store SnoCorner and Peruvian meals truck Mikhuna, together with main 30- and 40-foot catering vans for high-profile purchasers like Google and Monster Power.
Ramirez, his store supervisor Cody Madole and 4 different workers are a one-stop store for all the pieces a meals truck wants, together with plumbing, welding and electrical work to rework vans and industrial vans into functioning cell kitchens.
It’s a distinct segment manufacturing enterprise that caters to enterprising cooks and restaurateurs who’re testing an idea or hitting the street for music festivals, farmers markets or a meal break at places of work.
The meals truck trade has grown as the prices to start out a brick-and-mortar restaurant have steadily elevated. In a enterprise that’s infamous for having razor-thin revenue margins, a truck is a safer wager — and one you may also resell if issues don’t work out, Ramirez mentioned.
Ramirez, who grew up in Bellflower, discovered his strategy to meals truck manufacturing by way of his stepmother. Within the late 2000s, she found how profitable the enterprise may very well be when she purchased a truck to start out promoting tacos in Miami. Earlier than she bought her first taco, she determined to record the truck on Craigslist to check the resale market. Inside a couple of days, a purchaser provided her double what she had paid for it, Ramirez mentioned.
After some coaxing from household, Ramirez realized he was completely outfitted to create cell kitchens from scratch.
He had spent greater than a decade transforming houses as a normal contractor and likewise had expertise in steel fabrication from a job constructing race vehicles. Meals truck manufacturing was like a mix of the 2, Ramirez mentioned.
Martin Ramirez, who owns California Meals Vehicles, at his workspace in Lengthy Seaside, the place he builds meals vans.
(Thomas R. Cordova / Lengthy Seaside Put up)
For years after he began constructing vans, Ramirez and his cousin additionally ran a taco truck referred to as LA Tacos & Co.
He’s now not concerned in that enterprise however runs a pizza truck with Avalou’s Italian Pizza founder and Lengthy Seaside resident Louis Lombardi.
The 2 met by way of a mutual pal, Lombardi mentioned. Ramirez beloved the pizza and provided to construct a truck to make the pop-up idea cell.
“We hit it off, and we’ve been nice buddies since,” Lombardi mentioned.
Beginning subsequent week, the pair plan to promote pizzas for supply by way of UberEats from the truck parked outdoors Ramirez’s California Meals Vehicles enterprise.
Working in meals truck companies has given Ramirez first-hand data of the way to effectively lay out a cell kitchen and arrange new meals distributors for fulfillment earlier than they even choose up a knife.
Ashley Monconduit, proprietor of SnoCorner close to Lengthy Seaside Polytechnic Excessive Faculty, ordered a customized meals cart from Ramirez in 2024. Her brick-and-mortar enterprise focuses on New Orleans-style shaved ice, referred to as Snoballs, however Monconduit was on the lookout for a cart to serve beignets and delicate serve at company occasions and birthday events.
Ramirez made the cart “based mostly solely on what was in my head” and even made the delicate serve machine detachable, Monconduit mentioned. That’s been an enormous assist for occasions the place she solely serves beignets as a result of the delicate serve machine accounts for a good portion of the cart’s weight.
Ramirez additionally tries to remain forward of the curve on improvements within the meals truck trade. He now steers purchasers away from utilizing turbines in favor of solar-powered batteries. Ramirez is aware of from expertise that for those who use a generator, “it’s going to break down on the worst time.”
With a lot of the batteries he installs, he can troubleshoot issues from his desk regardless of the place a truck is.
However he nonetheless makes his justifiable share of on-site repairs for drivers who by chance sheared off a facet mirror or rooftop exhaust fan of their scramble to make it to an occasion.
Not all of the repairs are a drag: He’s constructed out a number of vans for purchasers in Hawaii. Ramirez, an avid surfer, makes some extent to go to these vans at any time when his schedule permits.
Jacob Sisneros writes for the L.A. Native, a nonprofit newsroom masking Los Angeles communities.
