Orange County Food Service, the county’s largest operator of food catering trucks, is moving from Anaheim to Placentia and closing its catering truck business to focus on vending machines.
The company bought 3 acres of land with a 20,000-square-foot warehouse and 6,000 square feet of office space in Placentia for $3.5 million.
Dennis Sigalos and Susan Karagines, son and daughter of the company’s owners, said the company plans to grow its vending machine company S & K; Vending Inc. from Placentia.
They said they plan to shut down Orange County Food Service and sell its 10-acre site in Anaheim.
Orange County Food Service’s Anaheim site includes a 50,000-square-foot warehouse on Miraloma Avenue near Kraemer Boulevard.
The location could appeal to real estate developers looking to add buildings to the county’s tight industrial real estate market.
The site also could spark interest from the city of Anaheim, which might seek to develop a subpower plant for the city’s electric utility or a fire station, according to sources familiar with the site.
The city of Anaheim declined to comment.
Sigalos and Karagines said it was in their best interest to close Orange County Food Service, though the families are emotionally attached to the 52-year-old business.
Orange County Food Service is the largest catering truck company in Orange County.
Anthony Sigalos and Peter Karagines, best friends who both are of Greek heritage, started Orange County Food Service and S & K; Vending in 1955 in Buena Park.
Sigalos learned about the catering truck business from his father, Arthur, who owned and operated eight catering trucks in Rosemead during the 1940s. Anthony Sigalos and Peter Karagines took over the catering truck business and also started stocking vending machines. In 1961, Sigalos and Karagines moved the company to Anaheim and built its current site.
“We were the first business on this strip of land when our fathers built this property,” Susan Karagines said. “Anaheim was a lot different back then. We’ve been around to watch it grow.”
The Sigalos and Karagines families are selling their catering trucks to their drivers. The company had owned 200 hot and cold catering trucks and had 350 workers.
Orange County Food Service now has 70 catering trucks calling on construction sites, factories, office buildings and clients such as Disneyland and the Orange County Superior Court.
The company’s longtime Anaheim competitor, TGI Caterers Inc., formerly called O.K. Caterers, has felt the effects of the families’ decision.
TGI Caterers’ owner, Gilbert Gonzales, said that several of Orange County Food Services’ former workers have moved their catering trucks to his 4-acre commissary.
Sigalos and Karagines said the prospects for growth in vending machines are better than the competitive catering truck business.
S & K; Vending stocks 3,000 customized vending machines in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties with prepared and packaged foods.
Sigalos and Karagines said the company currently services 30 sites a day and hopes to grow to 50 once the company settles into its new building.
The vending company has 80 workers and a fleet of 30 trucks. The company doesn’t disclose annual sales.
