When Carnival Cruise Lines needed to outfit an entire private island with food service infrastructure, they turned to Custom Mobile Food Equipment — and the result became one of the most ambitious and rewarding builds in the company’s history.
“Being a part of a Carnival Cruise Line was huge for us,” said David Kyle, Vice President of Custom Mobile Food Equipment. “The volume of opportunities they brought to us was quite essential for us. We were excited to work with a company like that, who has tons of different outlooks and opportunities — and to be able to build out a private island that we could do ourselves was pretty interesting. We were excited that they gave us that opportunity.”
The scope of the project was unlike anything a single food truck build requires. Custom Mobile Food Equipment designed and fabricated approximately 30 different mobile buildings and food stands, each purpose-built for the island’s unique needs. The lineup covered nearly every food and beverage category — burger stations, fry stands, chicken finger setups, Chinese food service, pizza operations, crew bars, and drinking water stations. No two units were exactly alike, and every one was built to Carnival’s exact specifications.
Branding was an equally important part of the process. Rather than applying a single look across every stand, the team worked closely with Carnival’s marketing department and the company’s own graphic artists to develop a distinct identity for each unit on the island. “They came back to us with their vision of what they wanted to look like on the island,” Kyle said. “They worked alongside our graphic artists and came up with an idea for each layout that was specific to their needs and wants.”
Getting 30 custom structures from New Jersey to a private island in the Bahamas required a logistics operation as carefully planned as the builds themselves. Each unit was loaded onto a tractor trailer, shipped to a port in Palm Beach, transferred onto a barge that runs twice a week to the Bahamas, offloaded on the island, moved again by tractor trailer, and finally craned into place on site. “Quite a few logistics in there,” Kyle said, “but everything was successful, no issues, and it was quite the neat project.”
For Custom Mobile Food Equipment, projects like this one reflect the company’s ability to scale with any client — from a first-time food truck owner to one of the world’s largest cruise lines. If you’re looking to bring a big vision to life, contact us today to get started.
