Food truck builder in Rochester burns customers nationwide

For the past decade, gourmet food trucks have been one of the hottest trends in the national food scene.

The concept looks so simple: With a clever idea, eye-catching graphics and a few good recipes, chefs and home cooks alike can launch their own businesses at a fraction of the cost of opening brick-and-mortar restaurants.

But a large number of entrepreneurs who have hitched their culinary dreams, and often their life savings, to food trucks have found their fingers burned by a Rochester food truck fabrication company called M Design Vehicles.

Owned by husband-and-wife team Ian MacDonald and Maggie Tobin, M Design was, until the summer of 2017, the largest manufacturer of the vehicles in the Rochester area.

You've likely seen M Design's work at local food truck rodeos or festivals; among its many projects have been popular trucks like Stingray Sushifusion, Macarollin’ and Wraps on Wheels.

After hearing complaints about the company, the Democrat and Chronicle conducted an extensive six-month inquiry that included interviews with more than 30 food truck owners and industry experts, and the review of hundreds of pages of documents, contracts and records. Among its findings:

The investigation revealed a history of disparate workmanship and questionable business practices that has culminated in a crisis for M Design and its customers.

The Democrat and Chronicle spoke to five food truck owners who paid deposits of as much as $42,500 for trucks that haven't materialized, and they worry their money is gone for good; a police report reflects that there are likely two more.

At least 11 additional M Design customers have either spoken to the Democrat and Chronicle, or filed lawsuits or formal complaints saying M Design's shoddy workmanship on food trucks or trailers or the state of the vehicles themselves resulted in thousands of dollars in repairs.

Tobin says M Design will forge ahead despite setbacks, but the company has left a trail of lawsuits, unpaid debts and dissatisfied food truck owners hailing from Massachusetts to California.

Even in the days before publication of this story, people continued to come forward with similar experiences with M Design.

“They really put us through a lot in our first year as a small business,” said Erica Pratico the co-owner of Roadies Diner, a Boston food truck that focuses on Latin American cuisine.

Such tales are a salient lesson in the high risks of starting a business in the hot food truck industry.

Penfield native Joe LoPresti is a reality television producer who has worked on shows like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and America's Got Talent. He also owns and operates The Garbage Truck, selling Rochester’s iconic trash plates to the likes of Seth Rogen, Josh Groban and Abby Wambach on the streets of Los Angeles.

More: He serves trash plates to the stars

"Home of the legendary Rochester, NY 'Trash Plate' ... you just gotta try it to appreciate it," the menu extols.

Business was going well — his sales had grown by 30 percent from 2016 to 2017 — and his next step was to launch a second truck in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the summer of 2017.

He decided to have the truck built at M Design; MacDonald said he could work within LoPresti's time frame. Typically, M Design would draw up the plan for a truck and take care of buying the truck and equipment. Completed trucks usually cost between $60,000 and $90,000, depending on truck size and specifications, and took two to three months to build. A deposit of about $20,000 to $30,000 was required.

After having one truck under his belt, LoPresti had specific, detailed ideas of what he wanted in the new truck, so he bought his own truck and shipped it to M Design in the spring of 2017. His bank wired $21,396 to M Design to purchase additional equipment and begin the project, even though he did not have a final design and specifications that met with his approval.

From California, LoPresti found MacDonald to be slow to respond to emails and cagey about committing to the details he required. He made two cross-country trips to Rochester that summer to keep tabs on the situation. He found that work had begun on the truck and it did not meet his requirements. Equipment that he had been told by email was on its way was nowhere to be found. During one visit, an M Design employee pulled LoPresti aside, alerting him that the company’s usual procedures were not being followed on his truck and that his equipment had not even been ordered.

When LoPresti angrily confronted MacDonald, asking him where his equipment and money were, MacDonald told him, “it’s in the business.”

In August 2017, an angry LoPresti decided to take his truck and refrigeration equipment he had purchased from M Design and seek a refund of his deposit. Once the truck was in his possession, LoPresti realized that in addition to work being done incorrectly, the truck had been damaged and pilfered for a part.

Tobin characterized LoPresti as disgruntled, belligerent and volatile during this process. She said that she felt threatened by LoPresti — so much so that she called the police for her own protection.

In the Boston area, Jaswant Singh and his three brothers operate nine successful Indian restaurants. They thought a food truck would be a perfect complement to their business. After researching many food truck builders, their company wired M Design a $42,500 deposit on July 28, 2017, to start building Tandoor and Curry on Wheels. One reason for selecting M Design was a lower estimate than others.

How to fight if a business rips you off l Mistakes to avoid if you want to start a food truck

The truck, with an $85,000 total price tag, was verbally promised by Oct. 31, 2017, although his contract did not reflect the delivery date. (Five other M Design contracts reviewed by the Democrat and Chronicle included the language, "specific delivery dates cannot be guaranteed.") Nevertheless confident in MacDonald’s assurances, Singh booked events that required use of the truck.

After the wire transfer, M Design stopped returning calls, Singh said. In late August, Singh received an email from MacDonald saying that M Design would be unable to complete the project on time. Singh made the six-hour drive to Rochester to check on the situation.

When he arrived, he grew uneasy. The previously busy Norman Street facility was strangely quiet, and Singh overheard MacDonald trying to reassure a customer who sounded like she was in a similar predicament as his.

“Uh-oh, there’s something going on here," Singh remembered thinking.

During his visit, he learned that his truck had not even been purchased. He then called police and filed a police report.

On Sept. 13, Singh emailed Tobin threatening legal action.

Two weeks later, M Design agreed to draw up a second contract — this time with a Dec. 8 deadline and a $400 per day penalty for missing that date. MacDonald also handed Singh a title for a 2002 truck that was going to be converted.



Meanwhile, with catering events on the calendar, Singh and his brothers had a food truck built by a company in Boston.

The Dec. 8 deadline came and went with no truck. On Jan. 16, Singh and his cousin, Inderjeet Singh, paid MacDonald an unannounced visit at his office on State Street.

“He was shocked when he saw us,” Singh said.

At the meeting, MacDonald told the Singhs that he didn't have any money, and would not be able to refund their deposit or build the truck. He did not volunteer the location of the truck to which they had title.

The two men visited the Democrat and Chronicle that same day, a folder of supporting documents with them. They were dumbfounded by what they had heard from MacDonald and dreaded heading back to the family business to recount the situation.

“It’s a lot of money,” Singh said, ruefully.

Singh recounted MacDonald saying, "I feel bad for you guys. I put you in a bad situation."

The Democrat and Chronicle had heard a strikingly similar tale from another M Design customer. Anna and Tyler Burnley own Mission, a casual burger spot in Newport, Rhode Island, together with two family members. They had given M Design a $24,000 deposit for a food truck in April 2017. MacDonald told them the truck would be finished in about two months.

Come January 2018 — nine months later — they still did not have a completed truck but were told M Design might have a plain white box truck available. M Design's lawyer eventually sent the Burnleys' lawyer a title for that vehicle.

Days later, the Democrat and Chronicle was tipped off to two white box trucks parked at an outdoor storage facility in Penfield. The VIN numbers matched those given to the Singhs and Burnleys. The Singhs’ truck had large rectangular holes cut into the roof and the side of the truck. It was uncovered, leaving the interior exposed to the snow, rain and wind.

In many ways, the meteoric rise of branded gourmet food trucks gave rise to the situations faced by these and other food truck owners.

The trend arose from the economic slowdown of the mid-2000s, when consumers stopped eating out, restaurants shut down and chefs were out of work. Kogi, a Korean taco truck in Los Angeles, sparked the concept of high-end food served from a truck; it quickly became a national phenomenon. Before long, television shows like The Great Food Truck Race and movies like Chef featured food trucks. The trend spread to smaller cities and hit Rochester in 2011, when siblings Seamus and Lizzie Clapp launched the food truck Le Petit Poutine.



The demand for food trucks spawned a new industry for food truck builders, most of whom were new to putting kitchens on box trucks. The task is more difficult than it may seem, and the risks are high. Food trucks cook with propane, which is flammable when exposed to air. The most extreme situation: In 2014, a propane tank on a food truck exploded in Philadelphia, killing a mother and a daughter and injuring 10 others. Some states and municipalities have responded by enacting strict building standards for food carts and trucks, but they vary from place to place.

Sources say that the situations faced by M Design's customers are not uncommon; similar situations have unfolded around the country largely as the result of inexperience on the part of food truck owners and builders.

Setbacks are difficult for any fledgling food truck business to absorb, but the typical food truck business is so small that “you can hardly call them a small business,” said Matt Geller, president of National Food Truck Association. The owners scrape together the start-up costs through a combination of life savings, credit cards and loans from family members — and then they are “scrapping to survive the first year,” he said.

M Design started building food trucks in 2012. MacDonald had experience with mobile food businesses, but also had two personal bankruptcies. The public records for the more recent bankruptcy in 2007 reflect that he had been sole proprietor of a business called Northcoast Cart; it was defunct as of January 2006. Included in the listing of more than $250,000 in debts were sums owed to apparent suppliers to that business or other miscellaneous unpaid bills.

While MacDonald declined to comment for this story, he has been interviewed for several past Democrat and Chronicle stories, including for an Instagram project called ROCLives. In 2014, he described the beginnings of the company:

We used to build kiosks and carts for amusement parks, stadiums and malls. We would do an occasional trailer or truck here and there. Three years ago we took a couple of food truck projects just out of the blue and fell in love with it. We stopped building kiosks and carts completely and put all our efforts into food trucks. It took off like crazy.

We learned by trial and error. We messed up our fair share in the beginning and had to rebuild some and it cost us a lot of money. We had a lot of warranty work the first year. The plumbing and electrical systems on these trucks are relatively complex. To make sure that they function properly in the weather that we get, to make sure they function properly after bouncing down the road and getting hammered on by people who aren’t mechanics and don’t know how to fix anything, took some doing.

Many of M Design's early customers say that they were reasonably satisfied by the trucks the company produced, and the company generally took care of issues that cropped up.

Rod Veras, owner of the Stingray Sushifusion truck in Rochester, said that when he received his truck from M Design in April 2013, it had minor issues such as a missing rice cooker, and faucet piping broke the next year. He and MacDonald butted heads when MacDonald tried to charge him $500 for the repairs, which Veras said were under warranty.

"Ian didn’t know everything," Veras said about his experience. "He was learning as he was going. ... It would have been nicer if he would have let us know that, like, ‘Listen, I’m still very new to this, so there’s going to be a lot of mistakes, so work with me,’ and my father and I, we totally would have done that. But that’s just not how it went down.”

In 2012, M Design built 22 food trucks, and the bulk of the production was done by Out Front Food Trucks, a builder in Buffalo. That year, M Design was among the sponsors of Rochester’s first food truck rodeo; hungry crowds, enthusiastic to check out the latest trend, quickly overwhelmed the dozen or so trucks at the Rochester Public Market.

Customers say that MacDonald had the engaging personality of a consummate salesman and quickly gained their trust.

“I really believed in them. I really trusted them,” said Laura Christie, a private chef in Litchfield County, Connecticut, who hired M Design to build her food truck in March 2016. It was delivered two months later than promised, with safety issues that cost her business thousands to remedy. “I usually have a pretty good gauge on people and this one took me by surprise.”

In 2014, MacDonald and Tobin told the Democrat and Chronicle that the company was branching out to emergency vehicles and trucks for churches and charity, and using some of its profits on special projects that “spoke to their hearts.”

"Food trucks are nice and they're fun, but they're not important," MacDonald said then. "I feel I have the ability to give back."

In 2015, M Design transferred truck production to its own shop and moved from an 1,800-square-foot space on Emerson Street to a 30,000-square-foot facility at 175 Norman St. in Rochester.

In 2016, while continuing to build food trucks, M Design landed a major subcontract to build kitchens housed in shipping containers at the Rochester Public Market. To ramp up for that project, it secured a $150,000 loan from PathStone Corp., a nonprofit regional community development and human service organization, because the company wasn't able to get a loan from conventional lenders.

This seems to be the tipping point when things really came undone.

By 2017, M Design seemed to hit some major potholes. The Rochester Police Department visited the Norman Street address 15 times from Aug. 16 to Sept. 3, many of them involving “customer trouble,” according to police records. One of those visits was the day Jaswant Singh from Boston called police. The police report from that day reflected statements from Singh as well as two other food truck owners, not quoted in this story, who said M Design had taken deposits of $18,000 and up but had not delivered trucks.

The police report revealed a dire situation. MacDonald was quoted as stating that he had “zero dollars and zero cents” in his bank account.

All tallied, the police report reflected that as many as seven businesses had paid deposits of $20,000 — adding up to roughly $140,000 — on jobs that MacDonald said he would not be able to complete.

He could not offer an explanation of where the money was, just saying that it was “in the business.”

At the same time, M Design was dealing with cascading legal troubles:

• Pratico, the co-owner of Roadies Diner in Boston, won a $2,000 judgment in small claims court in Massachusetts in June 2017. The cost was to remedy problems caused by the truck being more than 4,000 pounds over its manufacturer's recommended weight. She says she has yet to receive payment.

• San Diego-based Dunkin' Donuts franchisee Burton Restaurants sued M Design for $200,000 plus punitive damages in August 2017, claiming the truck it built did not meet California code specifications, where it was meant to operate. M Design denied the allegations and that case is still pending.

• An insurance company, Cincinnati Specialty Underwriters Insurance Co. filed a lawsuit against M Design and won a judgment for $3,338.

• M Design stopped paying rent on the Norman Street location in August, according to court papers. The company was evicted from the property in November and owes $11,500 in back rent, plus court costs. Tobin has confirmed the debt.

• Federal tax liens total $65,752 as of Feb. 26. The company also owes about $34,069 in state taxes as of Feb. 7.

• Jay Sneideman, owner of The Skyscraper Sandwich Truck from Glastonbury, Connecticut, took M Design Vehicles to Rochester small claims court for $5,000. Sneideman said that within weeks of delivery, the truck had major issues including a blown head gasket and a broken emergency brake. The case is pending.

► 2017: Food truck maker M Design faces lawsuits, tax lien

Between taxes, lawsuit judgments and deposits that were never refunded after trucks were not delivered, the company is now at least $200,000 in debt — not including the balance of the Pathstone loan or the accumulated penalty costs from the Singhs’ vehicle.

Events came to a head in the summer when key employees walked out: Simon Scheuerman, a welder; Charlie Lewis, a former military airplane mechanic; and Josh Zwierlein, a veteran and master automotive mechanic.

They said M Design appeared to be a thriving business when they were hired, but over several months, they noticed that money seemed to be drying up and customers were upset. When they took matters to MacDonald, he was dismissive.

The company fell behind on deadlines and finances for the Rochester Public Market project, Scheuerman said. “They were in over their heads,” he said.

When paychecks started bouncing, they walked out, taking equipment they say belonged to them.

“Initially, I don’t think there was ever an evil intent from (M Design),” said Scheuerman. “But I think it gets so blurred between what’s good and bad when you’re trying to keep your business open.”

On Aug. 31, 2017, in the midst of angry customers, lawsuits, tax liens and an employee walkout, Maggie Tobin registered a new company called Griffin Specialty Vehicles.

A Buffalo-area Craigslist ad for Griffin promoted the company as an experienced, high-quality food truck designer and builder, and a Griffin business card listed food trucks, disaster relief and shipping containers as some of its products. A Griffin business website also highlighted food trucks, although it has since been taken down.

Another company, Four Horse Customs, was created by four former M Design employees including Lewis, Scheuerman and Zwierlein. They said they had planned to walk away from the food truck business when they left M Design, but its customers had sought them out and they were trying to help people left in the lurch.

“I don’t want anyone else to lose their money,” said Scheuerman. “You’re not building trucks for Pepsi or Coke. Most of the time, this is (these owners’) life savings. They’re everyday people.”

Scheuerman acknowledged that M Design’s owners have accused them of stealing customers, but he denies the allegations.

“We were all dedicated to making this work,” he said. “We just fled the sinking ship."

On Feb. 5, the Democrat and Chronicle met with Maggie Tobin and M Design’s lawyer, David Ealy of Trevett Cristo, at a local coffee shop. The meeting, which lasted close to an hour, allowed Tobin a chance to respond to the allegations the reporters had found in their investigation. In some cases she conferred with Ealy before answering questions. MacDonald, most customers’ primary point of contact, did not attend.

Tobin said that she chose to represent the business because she is president and owns 60 percent of the company — but later in the meeting she said her role in the company had been reduced because the company is no longer doing the manufacturing.

M Design is still in business and moving forward, she said. The company has reforged its business relationship with Out Front Food Trucks in Buffalo. Out Front confirmed the business relationship, saying that the company would handle all fabrication and truck financing, while MacDonald would continue to cover sales.

Tobin said the Rochester Public Market project, the company’s first municipal project, did not go as anticipated and the company lost money on the project, but she laid much of the blame for the company’s problems on the employee walkout. She accused LoPresti, owner of The Garbage Truck in Los Angeles, of being the source of negative publicity about the company, calling him volatile and belligerent.

Tobin acknowledged that the company fell “behind” on their truck builds in 2017, but said the company plans to complete the trucks for which it has deposits. The company is in talks with some customers to settle the contracts — but refunds of the deposits are not on the table. Ealy pointed to the company’s contracts.

“With these contracts there’s no set delivery date and there’s also built-in profit in the contract,” he said. Canceling the projects would be considered breach of contract, he said. They both said that despite MacDonald’s verbal delivery dates, the company’s delays have fallen within a reasonable time frame for delivery.

Tobin confirmed that the company is in debt to the tune of $170,000 or more, in addition to the undisclosed balance on the $150,000 Pathstone loan, but believes that the company can climb out of that debt.



“It’s not insurmountable,” she said. “We’re certainly going to honor that debt.”

When reporters asked about the statements MacDonald made in the police report, including having “zero dollars and zero cents” in the bank account, Tobin explained:

“At that point we were in a really tough situation. The guys had walked out. They had started calling all of our former, current and potential customers that they got out of our computers and out of our offices — spread some vicious rumors about us that we were going out of business and we were going bankrupt. And many customers pulled out. We were going through a lot of things with Joe LoPresti at the time.

“I think at that point, (MacDonald) was panicked and I was panicked. We got it together and we’ve made some inroads and some partnerships and now we’re moving forward.”

They declined to comment about MacDonald’s two prior personal bankruptcies.

Tobin said that her new company, Griffin Specialty Vehicles, specializes in disaster relief vehicles, and creating the company was part of a long-term strategy to differentiate food trucks from those vehicles.

She seemed confused and taken aback by the amount of negative feedback from customers, saying the company had done good work. She pointed to the company’s community service, saying that they had hired a refugee and an ex-convict and had discounted trucks built for Foodlink and a church in New Jersey. (Foodlink declined to comment for this story.)



“We believe in our product,” she said. “We’re very excited about the future. We’re moving forward.”

MacDonald, reached by email following the meeting, declined to comment.

The Democrat and Chronicle followed up the meeting by email, asking for documents to support Tobin's assertions. None were provided.

Businesses who have been caught up in M Design's downfall are now struggling themselves.

LoPresti had his second truck completed by Four Horse Customs, the company started by former M Design employees, paying for the $30,000 cost with a credit card. But the costs of completing the truck, in addition to payments on the loan paid to M Design, has his business “hanging by a thread.” He is working on a television show, leaving him with little time to launch the second food truck in Charlotte.

“I’m a pretty calm guy but I get anxiety,” LoPresti said. “How am I going to pay this month's bill? It gets to you. It exhausts you. Sometimes it gets the best of me.”

LoPresti has become a one-man collection agency, aggressively seeking to collect the money that he believes M Design owes him. He has repeatedly called and texted MacDonald and Tobin. He has messaged their family members via social media. As a result, Tobin called the police, who reached out to LoPresti. LoPresti told the officer that Tobin owed him money.

Tobin confirmed she owes LoPresti money, but said she needs LoPresti to change his behavior and communicate with her in a more professional way.

In January, M Design offered $15,000 to LoPresti — paid in $500 cash up front and a series of payments after that. It came with a contingency: a gag order that LoPresti would no longer talk negatively about the business or the owners’ future endeavors. Convinced that his silence was being bought for $500 and that he would never see the remainder, LoPresti did not agree to those terms. Ealy, M Design’s attorney, said that LoPresti was being unreasonable to do so.

Singh, of Tandoor and Curry on Wheels in Boston, said MacDonald has responded to just one email since his visit to Rochester in January.

"After that, he doesn't answer anything," Singh said, saying he reached out to MacDonald via both telephone and email.

During the meeting in Feburary, Tobin said Singh had contacted M Design about what she termed breaking his contract and taking his truck back.

“We’re willing to give him his truck back and settle in some financial way but we just haven’t gotten to that point with him," she said.

That is not the case, Singh said adamantly during a telephone interview on March 7.

"If they are going to build a truck, that is not a problem," he said. "I'm ready to take the truck." As far as he is concerned, the $400 daily penalty outlined in the contract is still accumulating — tallying in the thousands. He also does not have the truck that was spotted, uncovered, in the Penfield storage facility.

In the meantime, he has kept in touch with the Rochester Police Department about the situation, he said.

The food truck dream has come to an end — at least for now — for the Burnleys of Rhode Island, whose truck was found alongside the Singhs'. The Burnleys have not received that truck, or heard from M Design about how the company plans to transport it. But their business does not have the funds or the desire to complete it.

They recently received a call from Out Front in Buffalo, offering to finish the build for them after their M Design experience. Anna Burnley said they plan to decline the offer.

“This was beyond anything I could have ever imagined,” said Burnley. "We all have a bit of bad taste in our mouths about the whole situation.”

STADDEO@Gannett.com

TRACYS@Gannett.com

Sarah Taddeo covers business news that impacts you as our readers — everything from wage issues to layoffs to Kodak's latest technology venture. As work takes up a large portion of our lives, she makes sure you know about the latest trends, problems and bright spots in the Rochester area business scene. Sarah joined the Democrat and Chronicle in April 2014. Previous experience includes World Magazine and Syracuse Media Group. She is a Syracuse native and graduated from Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Tracy Schuhmacher explores all facets of Rochester's food and drink scene, from restaurants to home kitchens to farms. Previously she worked for Wickham Farms, where she started up its kitchen and helped launch its CSA program. She spent several years competing in national recipe contests; her biggest win was $10,000 at the Pillsbury Bake-off contest. Her recipes have been published in national magazines including Cooking Light and Southern Living. Prior to joining the Democrat and Chronicle in 2015, she contributed freelance restaurant reviews and cooking articles. A native of the Chicago area, she has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Marquette University.