Supply chain issues leave would-be business owners penniless: 'This cannot be happening'

ORLANDO, Fla. - Ciaro Adorare says she’s been cooking since she was a kid, helping her grandparents in the kitchen.

"I took that career path as an adult because it fulfilled like a void," said Adorare. "I wanted to share that excitement and happiness with the world."

She decided to open up her own food trailer and had a friend who had theirs made through One Fat Frog in Orlando, so she contracted with them, too. Her purchase and sale agreement shows she handed over about $27,000. However, the time when her trailer was supposed to be delivered came and went.

Adorare says her boyfriend is still working, but her job is seasonal, so there isn’t much work for her right now. She says she’d been counting on starting up the food truck to make ends meet. Now, she’s worried she and her boyfriend may end up homeless.

"This can't be real," said Adorare. "This cannot be happening to me."

What’s worse is she says she hasn’t gotten any answer as to when her trailer might be ready.

"They stopped responding to calls," said Adorare. There was not responding to emails. I started to panic."

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The same thing happened to Eduardo Diaz. He paid about $28,000 for a mobile kitchen that was estimated to be finished around October. As of Feb. 1, he still doesn’t know when it’ll actually be done.

"It's been a nightmare," said Diaz. "Nobody's calling me back."

One Fat Frog has had a new civil lawsuit filed against it almost every month since May of last year. Some of those are for buying materials on credit with the stores and then missing payments. Some are from other clients who haven’t gotten their trailers.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office confirmed it was called out to the storefront earlier this week.

"We’re all struggling to pay these bills," said Diaz. 

FOX 35 News went out to One Fat Frog to find out the latest. The Operations Manager, Frank Connell, says this all boils down to supply chain issues and other problems leftover from the pandemic.

"We manufacture food trucks, and we build it from the ground up," Connell explained. "If there's a backlog on something that we can't get, it stops that build for that certain product."

The contracts the clients sign say the mobile kitchen should be ready in around 16 weeks but emphasize that this is an estimate. 

"Our backlog got bigger and bigger and bigger," said Connell. "It’s caused us a lot of issues in getting the trailers out in a timely fashion."

One Fat Frog recently got rid of its CEO and CFO, and says some of its bills from smaller vendors fell through the cracks. 

City Electrical Supply says One Fat Frog owes them over $14,000, not including interest. Ace Hardware says they’re owed about $5,600 plus interest. Piedmont Plastics says it was never paid for about $7,300 worth of material, which it now wants with interest. Each of those companies filed civil lawsuits against One Fat Frog.

Connell says they’re working right now to sort those out. 

They’re working on communication issues, too.

Diaz, Adorare, and other clients say they’ve been going unanswered by sales reps. Screenshots of text conversations and email chains show the customers often went days or even weeks without hearing back from the company. Connell says, One Fat Frog is owning up to that mistake. 

"The problem is, our salespeople just don't have the answers. So they have to go to our production site to figure out exactly what's going on with their trailer. And just the communication gap is something that we're working on," said Connell. 

In the meantime, their clients are still figuring out what to do. Diaz says things have been hard for him and his family. They’re working at Amazon to make ends meet, but his wife is undergoing surgery. His grandkids thought they could get jobs at the mobile kitchen. 

 "I'm trying my best to support my family and myself," said Diaz.

Adorare says she’s unbelievably stressed. 

"I haven't been able to eat. I haven't been able to sleep," she said.

One Fat Frog told FOX 35 it’s now anticipating a delay of 6-8 months. That means new clients will have to wait about 6–8 months for their trailers rather than the typical 16 weeks. 

However, for old clients, the company says the delay of 6-8 months applies on top of their original 16-week estimate, leading to a delivery of 10–12 months from when they paid for their trailer. 

"All I can say for myself and my team is, we are deeply sorry of all the delays that we have, and I promise you, their trailers will be taken care of," said Connell.