Coming Together for The Smoke Truck

Hey Guys,

We're Irene and Riccardo, parents to two beautiful little people (3yo & 4yo). Last year in May 2021, we left our jobs in London as it simply wasn't working out. We worked together, Riccardo was in an excellent position which would have seen him owning shares in the business come this December, me in accounts; however, due to unbearable situations, constant stress and unhappiness, the time came to make that huge decision.

Along with a friend, we all decided to pursue the food truck life. We spent a lot of money purchasing a Citroen HY van and having it refurbished. We had 3 months of waiting, which we used to establish our brand, our menu etc.

August 19th she was ready and we couldn't of been happier. Our first job was in 2 days' time! Little did we know that this was going to be the start of 'The smoke truck curse' I could blab on about how each of these events happened but lets face it, no one has 11 months to read our story, so to summarise:

Day 1:

Accelerator linkage broke

Popped tyre

Starter motor broke

Yep, that's correct! Luckily we got our job done. From then - August 2021 to now July 2022 -

all the following has happend:

Starter Motor repair

Flat Tyre

Engine blew up - New engine gets bought and put in. Then......

Partners leave - Meaning we had to borrow money to buy them out!

Spark plugs

Distrubutor

Fuel filter

Fuel pump

Air filter

Head Gasket

Piston rings

Brake Cylinders

Brake pads

Suspension

Steering rubbers

Brake pipes

Handbrake

Clutch bearing

Water pipes

Changed starter motor

Fly wheel broke after changing starter motor meaning having to once again change the starter motor

Re spray of roof - Becuase ours faded and turned from Orange to Yellow. When questioned, the company said it was because its been left in the sun and we would have to pay them to respray it! Erm quick question, who else has bought a vehicle thats had its roof fade and change colour because its been out in the sun? What do you guys cover your roofs with?? Incredible, absolutly incredibe the nonsense we had to hear.

Yep, I hear you, where the hell did we get this truck done?! Let's just say that if anyone reading this is planning on starting in this industry we would be happy to tell you who not to use. Luckily we found an amazing company that restores food trucks who have been our life savers. Literally! As this has become our sole income and they have always got us in quickly and had men working overtime to get us back on the road as quickly as possible. We can't thank them enough.

However, we are a family of 4 with 2 young children. We have a mortgage and the ever inflating bills to pay. As you can imagine, all of the above cost us thousands of pounds. All of our savings plus alot of borrowing.

To make matters worse, our truck is not equipped for what we now need to do. Yes, this is completly down to us and having a vision beforehand of how we wanted to move forward but as with most things, until you start you dont really know how anything will play out.

We have had an incredible almost first year, we've done some amazing festivals and events and got a dozen weddings booked in - so we're doing something right and have no doubt that it can be something amazing for a very long time but we need to change our truck. Something we simply cannot fund.

We need her longer. We need her taller. We need a new engine. We need the warming ovens removed. We need more fridge space and we need fryers (Yes, we have been listening to all our customers and if this campaign is successful you will get your chips LOL) so here we are! Asking you to help our small family business survive and allow us to keep serving our local communities.

Without these changes, we are limited to what we can do and how far we can travel, meaning we cant maximise our profits and if we're being honest, not sure if we will make it through the 'food truck' quite period of October through to March with no money left to dip into. So we need your help.

We thank you in advance for reading our nightmare and we hope you will be a part of our future, in which we are eternally grateful.

Love Always

*Edit - Today 24.07.22 whilst travelling to a wedding breakfast we were hit by a lorry! Yep, you literally couldn’t write it. Our luck is non existent. It’s damaged our side door where we store water, dented both wheel arches and scratched the whole side and bumpers