Custom BBQ Trailers
Offset and reverse-flow smokers, a serving porch built for the line out front, and an enclosed kitchen the county will pass. 916 Concession builds custom BBQ trailers for the whole state of California.
A BBQ rig is not a kitchen trailer with a grill bolted on. The heart of it is the smoker, and everything else gets laid out around how you cook and how you serve. Most builds we do put an offset or reverse-flow smoker on an open rear porch, with a spot for split logs right next to it, then run the prep, refrigeration, and wash setup inside the enclosed box. 916 Concession builds these to your menu and your axle weight from the first sketch, carries the California HCD insignia and Title 25 work on the unit itself, and hands you a county-ready set of blueprints for your health permit. We work with first-time pitmasters and seasoned competition teams the same way: real steel, county-approved cleanable cladding, and a layout that holds up to a long cook.
The centerpiece is an offset or reverse-flow smoker, usually porch-mounted with built-in log and split-wood storage right alongside it. Inside the enclosed kitchen you will typically find warming and holding cabinets sized to your smoke times, reach-in and undercounter refrigeration, stainless prep counters, and a 36-inch burner range or griddle for sides and beans. Any cooking line gets a Type 1 grease hood with filters and fire suppression overhead. For washing, we install a three-compartment wash sink plus a separate dedicated handwash sink, and on a lot of builds we add a second handwash near the service window so your front-of-line person stays compliant without crossing the kitchen. Walls and ceilings go in county-approved cleanable cladding, exterior LED lighting runs around the porch and serving side, and the serving window is set where the crowd will be.
Most BBQ builds run a 50-amp electrical package with 110V GFI outlets, exterior LED lighting, and the option to add solar with a battery bank if you work lots without shore power. The cooking is propane: typically two 100-pound LP tanks feeding the range and any smoker burners, plus an LP on-demand water heater so you have hot water at the sinks without a tank taking up floor space. Water is self-contained -- a fresh-water holding tank, a separate grey-water tank sized to match it, and a pump to move it -- so you can park and run a full service without a hookup. We size the tanks and the propane to your menu and your event length, because a team smoking all day off-grid needs a very different setup than a vendor plugging into festival power.
Why BBQ trailers get built differently
BBQ is a porch-forward business. The smoke, the bark, the smell of split oak burning down to coals -- that is the show, and the porch is the stage. A typical rear porch runs anywhere from 4 to 12 feet, with the smoker mounted out in the open and wood storage built in beside it so you are not hauling logs across the lot mid-cook. Behind it sits the enclosed kitchen, where the sides and the holding happen out of the weather. We build these for events and festival vendors who set up and break down every weekend, for caterers running brisket and pulled pork off-site, and for competition teams who need a road-legal rig that doubles as a working kitchen. The serving window faces the crowd; the cooking faces the pit. That split drives the whole floor plan.
Building to your menu and your footprint
Start with what you are selling. Brisket, pulled pork, ribs, and chicken with a few sides is the classic spread, and each piece changes the build. Long smokes mean more warming and holding cabinet space so product is ready when the window opens. Sides off a 36-inch burner range or a flat griddle mean a real cooking line inside, which means a Type 1 grease hood over it. Our most-ordered shell is a 7x14, but BBQ trailers tend to run longer because of the porch -- footprints land between 16 and 24 feet on a tandem axle. A 24-foot build is often roughly 12 feet of enclosed kitchen plus a 12-foot porch for the smoker and wood. We size the porch, the box, the tank capacity, and the axle rating together so the rig tows right and lays out the way you actually work. Any size, drawn from scratch.
Two approvals, and who owns each one
There are two separate sign-offs on a California concession trailer, and people mix them up constantly. The first is the HCD insignia under Title 25 -- that is the state certifying the trailer as a unit: the build, the structure, the plumbing and electrical systems. That one is on 916 Concession. We build to the standard and carry that work for you. The second is your county health permit, and that one is yours. Every county health department has its own counter, its own plan-check, and its own inspector, and they are the ones who let you operate. What we do is hand you a county-ready set of blueprints drawn to match the trailer we built, so your plan-check goes in clean. We build the unit and document it; you file for the permit to sell.
Timeline, registration, and getting it to you
A typical BBQ trailer runs about six weeks to build, though that flexes with inspection scheduling and how custom the smoker and layout get -- a big reverse-flow with a long porch is more steel than a compact event rig. On the road side, California issues temporary tags first and mails the permanent plates after, so you are legal to tow as soon as the unit is registered. 916 Concession handles that registration paperwork so you are not standing at the DMV. When it is done and signed off, we move it with in-house transport -- a crew we run with on these deliveries, not a load-board hauler -- and get it to you anywhere in California. Financing is available through third-party lenders we can point you to; terms come from them, not from us.
Build your BBQ Trailer
Tell us your menu and timeline. 916 Concession builds the unit, sets the California HCD insignia, and provides the county-ready blueprints.
Prefer to talk? Call 7758951064.