Meet Randy & Cheryl Elledge of United Caterers in Grand Prairie

Today we’d like to introduce you to Randy & Cheryl Elledge.

Randy & Cheryl, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
In 1979 I leased a food truck form Industrial catering where I learned the business over the next 2 years I saved $10 a day at the company which I used to buy my first cold food truck. Cheryl and I built that up to a fleet of 8 trucks over the next 5 years and then we bought our first hot food truck which we operated together until I went to work as VP for Jolly Chef a small company with about 10 hot trucks, over the next 20 years we built J C into the largest food truck company in the world with over 450 trucks that we ran successfully until the recession hit us around 2007 when we went bankrupt. I took over the J C fleet at that point and started Randy’s catering which Cheryl and I operated over the next several years. That was a real tough time in the food truck business so to insure our survival we merged our company with our fiercest competitor United Caterers who had taken over what was originally Industrial catering the first company that I had worked for. When we put our companies together we had to consolidate as many routes as we could to survive the downturn. In about 2010 we started our first gourmet truck called Yum Yum food truck that we operated over the next several years to try to get people interested in gourmet food truck which turned out to be a great success we now have over 30 gourmet food trucks and 150 route trucks that serve construction sites and factories. We are one of the most successful food truck companies in the country now with around 175 trucks at our lot. We lease trucks, we sell trucks, we service trucks, and we sell them supplies. My partners are Russell Westoff &’Freddie Penada Russell runs our shop and Freddie runs the commissary I run the trucks.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
We love this business I put my kids through school and created a great life for my family but it wasn’t easy it was always a struggle. When we started the hot food trucks at J C we were up against a very large and successful company Industrial catering and they didn’t go down easy they fought every inch of the way but we had a better mouse trap so we eventually turned the tide and bought them out. We had to convince each city to change the rules to allow hot trucks they had all previously allowed cold trucks.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about United Caterers – what should we know?
Our specialty is Tex mex on our route trucks we serve construction sites and factories, we also supply the truck and support them. We have a mix of customers that lease trucks and many that own their trucks. We supply route trucks and gourmet trucks.

The thing that I am the most proud of is that over the years we have helped hundreds of people realize their dream of going into business for their self. We teach people the business and help them get a truck of their own then they become a customer which we sell supplies to.

We are the biggest and best in DFW

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
I have had a lot of people in my life that have helped me along the way. The most important one is my wife and life partner Cheryl we got married in high school still in the 11th grade but we still managed to graduate together even though we were living on our own and supporting our selves still together through it all after 40 years.

My first mentor was Pet Brown my DE teacher from high school who helped me buy my first house at 18.

I owe a lot to Delbert Smith who sold me my first truck. I gave him half the money down and he financed the rest for a year unfortunately Delbert didn’t live to collect the second half of the payment, his wife was shocked and surprised when I showed up with the rest of the money that I owed Delbert as it turned out she didn’t know anything about the loan.

My main mentor was Jim Hoffman at J C that’s where I learned to survive in business he is a great guy that I respect and appreciate very much

Pricing:

• We have used trucks for sale around $65,000 which we finance with 20% down.

Contact Info:

• Address: 502 Idlewild Rd., Grand Prairie
• Phone: 469-446-2267
• Email: relledge@unitedcaterers.com
• Facebook: United Caterers

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