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OCRVEmpire

Mobile Business Owners

Food Truck Owners and Operators

The short answer

A food truck in our shop is a restaurant with the doors locked, so we schedule around your booked events and we sequence the work so the health department re-inspection is not the last thing anyone thinks about. Body repair on a serving vehicle touches stainless, hood penetrations, propane and the serving window frame.

01

What we see from this customer

Every day a truck sits here is a day of gross revenue that does not come back, and on a weekend festival schedule two of those days are worth more than the other five combined. So the first conversation is not about the dent. It is about which weekends are already sold and whether the Orange County and Riverside event calendar gives us a window. We will tell you plainly if a job needs three weeks, because a truck that shows up half repaired to a Saturday market in Corona is worse than a truck that does not show up at all.

The second problem is that almost no food truck we see was built by a company still answering the phone. Somebody cut the hood penetrations through the roof, ran the propane lines, mounted the generator, and framed the serving window, and the drawings do not exist. When a collision opens up that roof or that sidewall we are reverse engineering a build while we repair it. We photograph and document every one of those penetrations before we cut, because your county health inspector is going to want to see that the hood, the exhaust and the stainless came back the way they were approved.

That documentation matters twice. Your carrier writes the loss on the vehicle, and a stock cargo van valuation does not include the kitchen that was built behind the cab. If the propane manifold, the hood, the three-compartment sink or the serving window frame took damage, those lines have to be itemized with photographs or the adjuster will not pay them. We separate the truck from the kitchen on the estimate so both sides are visible. All work is performed at our Yorba Linda facility, and we do not touch engine or drivetrain, so a chassis problem goes to your mechanic in parallel rather than after us.

Location: All work is performed at our Yorba Linda facility. We do not offer mobile, roadside, or fleet route service.

02

What you are worried about, and the answer

Concern 01

Every day the truck is down is a day of lost gross, and the events are already booked

We schedule against your event calendar, not ours. Tell us the weekends that are sold and we will tell you honestly whether the scope fits between them or whether you need to release a date.

Concern 02

The kitchen was built by an outfit that has since closed and there are no drawings

We photograph and map the existing build before disassembly: every penetration, every clamp, every line route. That map becomes the reassembly drawing, and it also becomes the documentation your inspector and your adjuster ask for.

Concern 03

The county health permit may require a re-inspection after the body work

We sequence stainless, hood and exhaust work so the finished condition matches what your permit was issued against, and we hand you photographs of the penetrations and the sealed terminations to bring to the re-inspection.

Concern 04

The insurance adjuster is valuing a cargo van, not a working kitchen

We write the kitchen as separate itemized lines with photographs from the teardown. A build-out is claimable when it is documented as part of the loss. It gets denied when it shows up as one line reading equipment.

Concern 05

Propane lines, the generator and the hood all run through the area that got hit

LP lines are pressure tested and every penetration is resealed to spec before the panel closes. Generator mounting and wiring get checked as well, because vibration through a repaired panel finds a loose crimp faster than anything else.

Concern 06

The serving window frame is out of square and the window will not seal

A serving window that will not seal usually means the opening racked, not that the window failed. We measure the opening, correct the structure, then reset the frame. Resealing a window in a racked opening buys you one season.

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Services you need most

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Vehicles you run

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Questions

Frequently asked questions

How long will my food truck be out of service?

A bumper and one panel with refinish is usually five to eight working days. A collision that opens the serving side, disturbs the hood penetration and requires resealing runs three to five weeks, longer if the carrier supplements. We give you the schedule after teardown rather than before, and if a booked weekend is at risk we tell you early enough to find a replacement date instead of cancelling on a Friday.

Do I need a health permit re-inspection after body work?

That is your county call, not ours, and Orange, Riverside and Los Angeles counties do not handle it identically. Anything that changes the hood, the exhaust penetration, the stainless surfaces, the sink or the serving opening generally triggers a look. We build the file for it: photographs of the penetrations, the sealant terminations and the finished stainless, so you are not describing the repair from memory.

My truck builder went out of business. Can you still repair the kitchen side?

Yes, and it is the normal case rather than the exception. There is no wiring diagram, no penetration schedule and no parts list, so we build one during disassembly. Fabrication of brackets, framing and stainless is done in the shop. What we do not do is engine, transmission or drivetrain work, so keep your chassis mechanic in the loop for anything under the hood.

Will insurance pay for the kitchen equipment damaged in a collision?

Generally yes when it is documented as part of the loss with photographs and itemized lines, and generally no when it is submitted as a lump sum. Carriers pay for what they can see. We photograph the hood, the propane manifold, the serving window frame and the interior stainless during teardown and write them as separate lines with part numbers where those exist.

Can you rewrap the truck after the panel work?

Yes. Wrap and painted graphics are both reproduced here. Most trucks working inland Southern California lose their wrap edges before anything else fails, so if we are replacing a panel it is usually cheaper to redo the whole side than to patch a section and live with the color break. We show you the panel number against the full side number before you decide.

Tell us what you run and what happened to it.