Help save our Food Truck

Good morning!

I thought I would start off with a little bit of Sandwich Express history.

The idea for a food truck began while my friend & partner was busy overseas. Yes, he is a veteran. We spoke often & he kept telling me that I needed to move to Florida & invest/help with his food truck idea. After some time, my circumstances changed & I said "Good bye" to Missouri & "Hello" to Florida!

I was able to invest a small amount of money & lots of time. And June 2015, the window opened for Sandwich Express!

We did a number of events & festivals. And even though people said our sandwiches were "Amazing", we never could get the amount of crowd needed to make them worthwhile.

In July 2015, we were able to park at a spot not far from the Interstate, but that location was a let down.

In August 2015, we moved to a spot more in town, with slightly better success. Only slightly though.

In September 2015, we got a contract with AAFES & was able to park on the military bases. That proved to be much more successful.

During the next few months, we finally began to see some progress. Not rolling in the dough mind you, but enough to pay the bills & keep us afloat.

But life tends to throw curve balls at the worst time. I ended up going through a divorce, which made working difficult.

And then in January 2016, I got hit with colon cancer. Ten (10) wonderful days in the hospital, removal of part of my colon & a lovely cancer tumor. Along with all that, I also had to have my intestines "re-routed" & ended up with a colostomy bag. And a bill for over $300,000.00 that i am still fighting the insurance companies over.

I now have to go through chemotherapy. I was doing 3 days a week every other week. But because of neuropathy, a side effect, they had to change the type of chemo I get. So now, it's 3 weeks on & 1 week off.

Recovery has been long & slow, & working on the truck has not been possible. And because of this, we had to rely on outside help from friends. But again, circumstances made that difficult & we had to finally break down & hire some help.

The expense of paying someone has depleted our income & savings.

Our food truck is a self-contained unit. Which means we do not have to plug into an electrical socket, have water available to use or a sewage line. We have a generator, our own water supply & proper waste disposal. Our contracts with AAFES are only for 90 days. And because of that & being self-contained, they love to move us. we've been on three (3) different bases and multiple locations. Which makes it hard to build a significant customer base. We don't have any other source of income, and because we are a start-up company the banks won't help.

I try to help out as much as possible. But the fatigue & nausea is more than I can handle at times.

My long time friend and business partner works long hours and hard days but he can't do it all by himself. The extra expense of hiring help has put a strain on our new business. I can't work for at least the next six (6) months. We need some help getting through this tough situation.

I don't want the food truck to go out of business. So, I'm asking for a little help.

Thank you for taking the time to read about Sandwich Express!