Ceres’ first-ever mobile food park is preparing to open in an industrial area of southwest Ceres.
The 16,000-square-foot 18-vehicle food vendor court was approved by the Ceres Planning Commission in March 2024.The Conditional Use Permit allows the “grub hub” type facility to operate on a 0.75-acre parcel within the industrial park on the south side of Service Road just east of Farm Supply Drive. The proposed site is adjacent to Kase Manufacturing, a cannabis facility.
The businessman behind the project hopes to open within the first two weeks of September.
Shane Parson who initially got the project through the approval stage and sold it to Andy Sanchez, said a grub hub would be a great asset to the community, especially on the west side where “there’s not a lot of food options.”
Sanchez has been scrambling to prepare the site for months. It includes a covered seating area, a turf and gravel area, and a grassy area for customers to play games like corn hole. A 36-stall parking lot for customers and employees has been completed and now Sanchez is waiting to install seven electric vehicle charging stations. The compound will be enclosed by a wrought iron fence along the front, and chain-link fencing along the side and rear.
Some of the delays relate to dealing with the city.
“For the city of Ceres I think we were a little bit of a pilot, I mean, just the hurdles of trying to get approved with the ideas we had and the things the city would tolerate,” said Sanchez. “We’ve made a couple of changes here and there, just things that they didn’t like, things we wanted to do. But we’re there now.”
Originally Sanchez wanted to install gravel but the city got concrete aprons for the trucks to park on. He also had to install a new storm drain retention basin in addition to the one that was on the property.
The proposed hours of operation will be limited to 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. The site will be lit during dusk and night operating hours.
The site will have concrete pathway around a turfed area to access the various mobile food vendors. Mobile food vendors will park on concrete surface and lined up with the concrete pathway for customers to access the order/pick-up windows without leaving the concrete path to ensure ADA accessibility to every vendor.
A permanent public restroom facility is proposed for customers and mobile food vendor employees. The city required the installation of a high quality monitoring cameras for the exterior of the building so that police can monitor.
Sanchez isn’t very happy about the city approving two more food truck courts since he blazed the trail last year but acknowledged “competition is competition.”
Last month the Ceres Planning Commission approved two separate requests to permit grub hub style parks in Ceres. One is the Sanghera Grub Hub on a 0.83-acre portion of a 1.36-acre site at 3125 E. Service Road just east of the Gateway Car Wash and west of the TID Main Canal. It is proposed with parking for 10 food trucks, covered seating area, a game area and two restrooms. The second approval was for Ashley Ranuio’s Truck Stop Grub Hub and Outdoor Music Venue at 1379 E. Whitmore Avenue. The project includes parking for 68, seating area, game area, live performance area, commissary, truck washing station and restrooms on a three-acre lot in an industrial park.
