Shipping Container Pop Up Shops: Embracing a Growing Trend
8 Amazing Shipping Container Restaurant Conversions (You’ll Want To Eat At Them All)
We love great food, and we love awesome shipping container conversions even more – so what better way than to combine them and explore some of the best shipping container restaurants around the world! Shipping containers are after all part of the supply chain for almost all food that arrives in the country from overseas, be it bulk goods in 40 foot containers, or chilled products in reefers – even our appliances, cutlery and plates that we eat off are usually shipped from overseas in a container.
Here Are Our Top Eight Picks for Shipping Container Restaurants Worldwide:
1. Del Popolo Pizza Truck, San Francisco, USA
This amazing food truck consists of a transatlantic shipping container mounted on the back of an old Freightliner M2 truck that crawls the streets of San Francisco delivering delicious thin crust pizza to hungry Bay Area residents. But this isn’t any old shipping container on the back of a truck. Owner Jon Darksy has installed a 5,000 pound (2,200 kg for us Aussies) wood fired oven for cooking his organic creations in the back. Add on some custom glass walls on the side, a sink and venting on the roof and this simple, but effective, food truck is ready to roll. It’s definitely one of the most innovative food trucks we’ve seen in a while!
2. Hellmann’s, Copenhagen, Denmark
This mayonnaise company opened a pop up store in a modified shipping container to celebrate their 100th birthday. This container came wrapped in wrapping paper with a giant bow on top, once the bow was undone, the whole restaurant unfolded into place. Once it was all set up, there were free mayo sandwiches for everyone to enjoy!
3. MUVBOX Pop Up Shipping Container Restaurant
This awesome restaurant turns from a shipping container into a functioning restaurant or cafe in only 90 seconds. With solar power, a wood fired stove, seating and chairs, no comforts are spared to make for an amazing dining experience. We’ve all heard of takeaway food before, but this is the first time we’ve seen a takeaway restaurant. We think that this would be the perfect luxury catering for festivals and concerts.
4. The Container Restaurant, Durango, Coloradao
The Container Restaurant, built from recycled shipping containers, is located at the headquarters of Ska Brewing World. They serve local food and craft beers from taps that are installed inside the shipping container. A brick pizza oven is installed inside of the container, allowing them to serve pizzas, sandwiches and other bar style snacks.
The upper level of the building doubles as an amazing viewing room where you can enjoy a full view of the brewery and its shiny beer tanks, as well as the amazing mountains and hillsides in the distance.
We can’t think of a place we’d rather sit and enjoy a cool craft IPA and an organic pizza!
5. Thai Container Restaurant, Canterbury, New Zealand
Thai Container is a pop up restaurant, serving – you guessed it, Thai food in New Zealand. This award winning restaurant consists of a modified shipping container and a Kiwi food truck style caravan that serves delicious Pad Thai, Masaman Curries, Tom Kha and other Thai treats.
Just picture yourself sitting outside on the BBQ table, taking in the awesome street art painted on the sides of the container while sipping at an ice cold Chang and eating Pad Thai and sticky rice pudding.
6. El Rey Taqueria, Washington DC, USA
Photograph by Jeff Elkins.
This funky taco shop has been built out of a stack of recycled shipping containers painted in bright colours keeping with the Mexican theme. Its fully retractable roof allows it to be open and full of fresh air and sunlight in the summer, and cozy in the cold Washington winter. Shipping containers are, of course, specifically designed to hold up to the harsh conditions of international shipping, making them more than durable enough to deal with the wet and wild Washington winter.
It looks like an awesome place to have a Dos Equis with the most interesting man in the world, while scoffing back a massive Carne Asada.
7. Subway World Trade Centre, New York City, USA
Rebuilding the World Trade Centre in New York is hungry work for the thousands of construction workers who reconstruct this skyscraper every day. It’s time consuming climbing the stairs, ladders and elevators to get to the ground floor for street vendors, food stalls and cafes. This is time that hungry contractors just don’t have to spare, lunch breaks are 30 minutes yet it takes 45 minutes to reach the bottom.
Subway came to the rescue with an ingenious solution, a Subway store located in three modified shipping containers that are moved to the top floor of the construction site, allowing workers to get their lunch quickly and easily. What makes this Subway even more interesting was the food options, after all you’d expect a Subway operating out of a container on the roof to have less choices – instead, they offered even more to the hungry workers, with burgers and pretzels on offer in addition to the traditional 6 and 12 inch subs!
8. Wahaca Mexican Restaurant, Southbank, London
Yet another pop up Mexican restaurant built from recycled shipping containers – we’re sensing a trend! This restaurant is constructed from eight shipping containers stacked with a glassed in atrium at the centre. Even better, there’s a tequila bar on the top floor for those who want a little bit to drink with their spicy food for lunch of dinner. To keep in theme, they’ve even commissioned Mexican artists to decorate the containers with local artworks as well as recycled and found objects.
Thinking of Building Your Next Restaurant or Cafe in a Modified Shipping Container?
Contact Gateway Container Sales and our team of shipping container experts will be only too happy to help. While we aren’t in the business of building and construction, we do know how to source the best possible containers for the job and can do a wide variety of structural container modifications before they even get on site. Give us a call now to discuss your dream shipping container for foodies and it might even get featured on the blog!
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