What do Ukrainian food, delicatessen and Thai fusion tacos have in common? All are served by trucks built from scratch in an industrial building on Anaheim Street near the Los Angeles River.
“This is where food trucks were born,” said Martin Ramirez, owner of California Food Trucks.
Over the past 15 years, he has quietly contributed to the success of popular local businesses and large corporations. He has built custom projects for Long Beach dessert shop SnoCorner and Peruvian food truck Mikhuna, as well as large 30- and 40-foot food trucks for high-profile clients such as Google and Monster Energy.
Ramirez, his store manager Cody Madole and four other employees are a one-stop shop for everything a food truck needs, including plumbing, welding and electrical work to convert vans and commercial trucks into working mobile kitchens.
A specialty production business that caters to budding chefs and restaurateurs testing a concept or hitting the road for music festivals, farmers markets or office lunch breaks.
The food truck industry has grown as the cost of starting a brick and mortar restaurant has steadily increased. In a business notorious for thin profit margins, the truck is a safe bet — and you can sell it again if things go wrong, Ramirez said.
Ramirez, who grew up in Bellflower, got his way into food truck production from his stepmother. In the late 2000s, he discovered how profitable the business could be when he bought a truck to start selling tacos in Miami. Before he sold his first taco, he decided to list the truck on Craigslist to test the retail market. Within days, the buyer offered him double what he paid, Ramirez said.
After some persuasion from family, Ramirez realized he was perfectly equipped to build mobile kitchens from scratch.
He had spent more than a decade remodeling homes as a general contractor and had experience in metal fabrication for racing cars and construction jobs. Building food trucks was like a combination of the two, Ramirez said.
Martin Ramirez, owner of California Food Trucks, at his Long Beach facility, where he builds food trucks.
(Thomas R. Cordova/Long Beach Post)
Years after he started building trucks, Ramirez and his cousin also ran a taco truck called LA Tacos & Co.
He is no longer involved in that business but runs a pizza truck with Avalou's Italian Pizza co-founder and Long Beach resident Louis Lombardi.
The two met through a mutual friend, Lombardi said. Ramirez loved pizza and offered to build a truck to get the pop-up concept off the ground.
“We hit it off, and we've been best friends ever since,” Lombardi said.
Starting next week, the pair plan to sell pizzas for delivery via UberEats from a truck parked outside Ramirez's California Food Trucks business.
Working in food truck businesses has given Ramirez first-hand knowledge of how to properly set up a mobile kitchen and set new food vendors up for success before they even pick up a knife.
Ashley Monconduit, owner of SnoCorner near Long Beach Polytechnic High School, ordered a custom food cart from Ramirez in 2024. His brick-and-mortar business focuses on New Orleans-style shaved ice, called Snoballs, but Monconduit was looking for a cart that would serve beignets and soft serve at corporate events and birthday parties.
Ramirez made the cart “based entirely on what was in my head” and even had the soft-feed machine removed, Monconduit said. That's a big help at events where they only serve beignets because the soft serve machine accounts for most of the cart's weight.
Ramirez also tries to stay ahead of the innovation curve in the food truck industry. He is now dissuading his customers from using solar powered battery powered generators. Ramirez knows from experience that if you use a generator, “it will break at the worst possible time.”
With multiple batteries installed, he can solve problems at his desk no matter where the truck is.
But he continues to do his fair share of on-site repairs for drivers who accidentally clip a side mirror or a roof fan while trying to get to an event.
Not all repairs are heavy duty: He has built several trucks for clients in Hawaii. Ramirez, an avid surfer, makes sure to visit those trucks whenever his schedule allows.
Jacob Sisneros writes for LA Local, a nonprofit newsroom that brings together the communities of Los Angeles.
