Mugshots Coffee sells coffee and breakfast out of Missoula, Montana, from an 18ft Ford E450 step van wrapped end to end in graffiti art. Guilty of great coffee, licensed to sell mugs. It is the best wrap that has come out of our shop.
The part worth studying, though, is something most food trucks never have: a restroom. The owners are going to be working somewhere fairly remote, so they asked us to build in a 4ft by 4ft restroom with a toilet and a sink. That one request ended up shaping the plumbing for the whole truck.
Walkthrough video
A restroom on board, and why
Every food truck has to give its staff access to a bathroom. In Missoula the health department accepts either a bathroom on board or a written agreement with a nearby business that will let the crew use theirs. In town, the agreement is easy. At a trailhead, a river access, a work site or a rural event, there may be no business nearby to sign one, and a crew working a twelve hour day needs somewhere to go.
So this truck has its own 4ft by 4ft restroom between the cab and the kitchen, with a toilet and a vanity sink. It runs on its own plumbing, its own tanks and its own water heater, completely separate from the kitchen. Nothing from the restroom can ever reach the food side, which is exactly what a health inspector wants to see when the two share one vehicle.
Three water systems in one truck
The restroom is one system. The kitchen is the second: a 30 gallon fresh tank and a 40 gallon grey tank, a water heater and a pump, feeding a hand wash sink with a splash guard and a three compartment sink. Montana wants the waste tank at least 15 percent bigger than the fresh tank, which is why the grey tank is the larger of the two.
The espresso machine has a third system on top of that, with purified water, its own tank, heater and pump. Espresso machines are fussy about water. Hard water leaves scale in the boiler and the heating element, and scale is the most common reason espresso machines fail. Giving the machine its own filtered supply protects the most expensive piece of equipment in the truck. That is also why there are two separate drains on the outside of the truck.
The coffee side
The machine is a Nuova Simonelli Appia Life Compact, a two group espresso machine wired to 220V. Two groups means two shots can be pulled at once, which is what keeps a coffee line moving on a busy morning. Beside it is a Bunn AXIOM single gallon brewer for batch coffee, so drip customers are poured and gone without waiting behind the lattes.
Under the counter is an ice maker rated at 142 pounds a day, which matters more than people expect. In summer, iced drinks can be most of a coffee truck’s sales, and running out of ice at eleven in the morning ends the day early. Cold storage is a three section undercounter refrigerator for milk, cream and breakfast ingredients, under a stainless worktop.
The breakfast side, and the clever part
Breakfast is cooked on a 36 inch propane griddle under a 6ft Type 1 NSF hood, with ANSUL fire suppression installed by licensed installers. On the roof is an exhaust fan with a grease trap, so grease does not run down the side of the truck and across that wrap.
The clever part of this build is the proofer. A 9 pan proofer is normally for rising dough, but here it is used as a hot holding cabinet. A morning rush does not wait, so bacon and the other proteins get cooked ahead and held hot in the cabinet, and a breakfast sandwich goes together in the time it takes to pull a shot. That is what lets a two person truck serve a breakfast queue and a coffee queue at the same time.
We also left extra room under the hood and spare capacity in the fire suppression system. When the owners want a fryer, it is a case of fitting the fryer and adding one nozzle, not rebuilding the cook line.
Window, power and finish
The service window is 6ft by 3ft with an outdoor service shelf. The ice maker sits directly underneath it, so iced drinks are filled at the window rather than across the truck.
Power runs through a 100 amp panel with a shore power transfer box, twelve outlets and LED lights inside and out. Every piece of equipment is on its own breaker and all the wiring runs in conduit, so one fault trips one circuit rather than the whole truck. The generator is a 12.5kW dual fuel unit in an insulated, framed, lockable generator box, and the propane lives in an underbody tank.
Inside, the cooking wall and the walls throughout are stainless steel, the floor is aluminum diamond plate, and there is trim between every panel so grease cannot get behind it. There are three work tables and four wall shelves.
Built for a Montana winter
Missoula’s average January low is around 18 degrees, and a truck that is going to work through the shoulder seasons there needs to be built for it. This one has our cold climate build: inch and a half insulation in the walls instead of the usual inch, 9/16 inch plywood backing instead of half inch, and cold weather prep on the water tanks. With three separate water systems on board, keeping the water from freezing matters three times over.
The wrap
The wrap was designed around the name, and the joke runs all the way round the truck: Guilty of Great Coffee down one side, Criminally Caffeinated on the other, and Caffeinated, Convicted, Covered in Coffee across the back. It is the kind of wrap people photograph, which is free advertising every time the truck parks.
Getting a food truck licensed in Missoula
Missoula has three pieces: the health licence, the city licence and the fire department’s propane approval. Fees change, so confirm them with the offices named before you budget.
Missoula Public Health and the state licence
Plan review goes through Missoula Public Health, with a base plan review fee of $285 and extra fees for things like catering or wastewater plans. Their goal is to finish a review in 30 to 60 days. Each unit needs a certified food protection manager, though that can be waived for a beverage only or prepackaged only truck, and the unit must be able to move within 30 minutes. The annual Montana retail food licence is $150 for a small mobile unit and $225 for a large one, collected at the pre-operational inspection and renewed through the state. A truck licensed in another Montana county does not need to be relicensed to trade in Missoula.
You also need a bathroom plan: either a bathroom on board, like this truck, or an agreement with a nearby business if you plan to operate at a fixed location.
The City of Missoula
Selling inside city limits needs a City of Missoula itinerant vendor licence, priced per full time employee with a minimum fee, plus a 5 percent technology fee, and it expires on 31 May every year. The trading rules in short:
- Street and sidewalk vending is allowed only in the downtown business district, and the truck must be off the street by 9pm.
- Outside downtown, trucks trade on private commercial or industrial lots with the owner’s permission.
- Metered spaces are for setup only, stay 15 feet from hydrants and keep 6 feet of sidewalk clear.
- City parks need a parks concession permit and liability insurance.
Fire
The city’s vendor guide requires Fire Department approval for propane, at least 10 feet of clearance from buildings, and a 5 pound ABC extinguisher. A truck with a griddle under a hood also needs its suppression system serviced on schedule, so keep the tags current.
Montana has no general sales tax, which keeps the paperwork lighter than in most neighbouring states.
Where a coffee and breakfast truck earns around Missoula
Missoula has around 79,000 people and the University of Montana, with about 11,300 students this fall. The Clark Fork River Market runs on Saturday mornings from May to October under the Higgins Street Bridge, the Missoula Farmers Market fills Circle Square on Saturday mornings, and Out to Lunch brings food vendors to Caras Park every Wednesday through the summer. A coffee and breakfast truck fits the morning slot at all of them. And with a restroom on board, it can also go where most trucks cannot: the river put-ins, trailheads and work sites outside town, where there is no line of competitors and no shop to borrow a bathroom from.
What a build like this costs
Custom food trucks start at $55,000 and custom food trailers start at $40,000. A typical 16ft truck comes in around $72,000, and a large 22ft build with a full equipment package runs closer to $110,000. An 18ft truck with a restroom sits toward the upper part of that range, because the restroom brings its own plumbing, tanks and water heater, and the espresso machine brings a third water system and a 220V circuit.
Frequently asked questions
Can a food truck have a restroom on board?
Yes. This 18ft coffee and breakfast truck has a 4ft by 4ft restroom with a toilet and a sink, on its own plumbing, tanks and water heater, completely separate from the kitchen. Whether an onboard restroom satisfies the bathroom requirement is up to the local health department, and in Missoula it is one of the accepted options.
Does a food truck need a bathroom in Missoula?
A bathroom must be available to food service employees. Missoula Public Health accepts either a bathroom on board or a written agreement with a nearby business if the truck operates at a fixed location.
Why does an espresso machine need its own water system?
Hard water leaves scale in the boiler and heating element, which is the most common cause of espresso machine failure. A separate purified supply with its own tank, heater and pump protects the machine. On this truck it is the third water system, alongside the kitchen and the restroom.
How much does a food truck licence cost in Missoula?
Missoula Public Health charges a base plan review fee of $285. The annual Montana retail food licence is $150 for a small mobile unit and $225 for a large one. The City of Missoula itinerant vendor licence is priced per full time employee with a minimum fee and expires on 31 May each year.
Where can food trucks park in Missoula?
Street and sidewalk vending is allowed only in the downtown business district, and trucks must be off the street by 9pm. Elsewhere, trucks trade on private commercial or industrial lots with the owner’s permission. City parks need a concession permit.
Can a coffee truck serve breakfast too?
Yes. This truck runs a two group espresso machine and a batch brewer on one side and a 36 inch griddle under a Type 1 hood on the other. A proofer used as a hot holding cabinet keeps cooked proteins hot, so sandwiches go together as fast as the coffee.
More reading
- Missoula food truck inspection requirements
- Food trucks with restrooms for remote sites
- Cold weather food trucks and trailers
- How much does a coffee truck cost
Recent Montana builds
- 16ft fried chicken food truck built for Missoula, Montana
- 16ft burger food truck built for Bozeman, Montana
- 14ft bagel trailer built for Bozeman, Montana
- 18ft wedding catering food truck for Kalispell, Montana
If you are planning to work somewhere remote, or you want coffee and food out of one truck, call or text and we will lay it out with you before anything gets built. We have built around 500 food trucks, trailers, bus conversions and van conversions, and we ship anywhere in the country.
Jacob Varghese
Zion Foodtrucks
719-722-2537