Attendees to the this year will still be able to get their snacks and treats this season despite the concession stand still being closed for repairs.
“The mayor’s asked me to look into arranging some sort of temporary arrangement short of a lunch truck or an ice cream truck,” village clerk Joseph Scalero said during a meeting of the on June 20 at the .
A grease fire had and the stand could not become fully operable in time for the start of the pool season.
Instead, the village had secured a temporary mobile kitchen in the form of a 24 ft. mobile trailer/ camper set up to operate as a concession stand. It has a full commercial kitchen and meets all fire and health code inspections. Propane tanks would be used to fuel the kitchen apparatuses.
“All you have to do is find somebody to operate it and hook up a water supply line,” Scalero said. “It’s a full commercial kitchen – so anything that they can do in the concession stand can be done out of this unit.”
Scalero said that he had reached out to the concessioner, DJ Refreshment, from last year asking for interest in operating the unit in exchange for extending the contract, which is typically renewed on a yearly basis. The concession operator has agreed to keep “generally” the same menu at the same prices as last year.
“So while we may have lost a few days of the first week of the season, it would get us through until Labor Day,” Scalero said.
The bathrooms at the facility were not impacted by the fire. Some of the picnic tables would need to be moved in order to make room for the camper.
“I just thought it was a little bit better for us to have something better than a roach coach type of setup,” said. “Mineola’s better than that. We couldn’t get the building back on-line in time for the season; this is the next-best solution that we have.”
A large portion of the expense for the trailer would be recoverable from the village’s insurance coverage.
