The Food Service Rant thread

Too full, but mostly too heavy.

 

My route today surprised me a little, I thought yesterday when I looked at it oh 13,000lbs not much. Then I was in a hurry to get moving today, so I didn't really look at my load sheet just left. As I was driving out I thought "gee this trailer feels a little heavier then 13,000lbs." I get to my first stop I looked at my load and thought "This is pretty loaded." Anyhow no time to stop and think I had to be three quarters of the way done, before 11:00am I have a stop who's window closes at 11:00am there pretty far down.

Anyhow moving moving moving. Every stop I had was like 62 cases, 84 cases, 62 cases all 60's, 70's and 80's as far as case counts went. By the time I hit the 5th stop I looked at my load sheet 727 cases 18,222lbs. I went "yep that ballooned right up." Usually by the fifth stop the loads starting to get pushed back in the trailer and you have some room to work.

Actually it was good this week was kind of slow, so ending on a heavier day was good, put some money on the old pay check. Anyhow I had it all licked by 13:15 in the afternoon so it wasn't bad. Although the load quality for the first couple stops was questionable. I don't really know what a "good load" is so loads that I am told are bad I think are alright just because I can see what I need to grab ha-ha!

 

How many different divisions does McLane have?
Like today I saw a McLane sleeper truck and it looked like a team run making a delivery to a C-Store in Eastlake, Ohio. I also see McLane trucks at Walgreens and the dollar stores as well.

Also McLane's food service division like when I see them doing Taco Bell it's usually in day cabs, but the C-Stores are in sleeper cabs. What's that all about? Also McLane has like these 33 foot trailers that I see from time to time as well doing certain restaurant accounts.

 

There's just grocery and food service. Same name, but totally different.

We have one short trailer that goes to places we can't get a 48' in. Cedar Point, universities, malls, etc. I don't know how those guys do what they do with a sleeper and 53 footer. They used to deliver to a convenience store here that I have to jimmy my pickup sometimes to get out of a parking spot. They carry a lot of totes, and I don't think they deal with the weight that we do. A 53 wouldn't help us at all. We're almost always maxed out on weight, not volume.

 

Yesterday I was in Kentucky and my brother and I ate lunch at Texas Road House. That account must be a gold mine for Sygma Network, all that expensive steak and peanuts. I couldn't imagine the mess the dining room is at the end of the night all those peanut shells although maybe not I don't know for sure. However it was 1:00pm in the afternoon and the place was packed. Packed! Texas Road House just must go non-stop on the weekends.

It was funny I was driving down to Kentucky and I was like yeah I need to get me one of these routes where I can just go from truck stop to truck stop or non down town major city entities ha-ha!

 

I used to do a Wendy's right across the street from the Empire State building that was a huge gold mine for us. Average about 250 cases 3 times a week. It would be a 8-10k delivery 3 times a week

 

Yeah I tell you what Texas Road House has a winning business model, Steak, Peanuts and Pretty Waitresses pretty much seem to get people in the door.

 

@Mike2633 Have you heard of Maines Paper & Food? I'm going over there to work, Just took my rd test waiting for them to set me up at orientation. Pays better than the company I was at and they put you up in a motel instead of the truck. They run 28, 36, and 48s, depending on run some have lift gates. If I can get on pedals, doing mom and pop restaurants I'll be home everyday. There's a reason I went with food instead otr

The last place I was at made it as difficult as possible on the drivers. Strictly 48s and sleepers. No liftgate or pallet jack. If you wanted a helper they took a pretty big cut out of it. I could go on and on. Good place to start w/o exp but not somewhere you'd want to make a career of. I left when they wanted me to sleep at a backhaul after humping freight for 2 days. Got there at 6pm they said your not getting loaded until 10am all for a measly $35..........F this im out. Any day of the week they have 30+ trucks around north jerz that could of got it instead of making my helper and I wait 16hrs. I put up with a lot of bs and that was the last straw

 

One of our newer drivers came from Sygma. He said Mother's Day (I think. Maybe Father's Day. Or both ) was crazy. Like one store would take a full 48 footer crazy. He would be humping cases for seven hours at one stop.

 

We had a few runs like that for arby's. Take a 48 stuffed to the max, 1500 cases which was around 50k in the box. Usually would be 3 stops at the most. All the other smaller stores would pick their order there. They were the tit runs all the old guys would get. I used to do a nyc turn and burn with another driver. About 20-22 hours a run 3x a week, Paid decent about 1000 after taxes but they totally screwed the run up and I switched to doing 2 shutdown runs with a helper and was only taking home about 650-700 which is pathetic. I'm single and I wonder how some of these guys support a family on that wage? If you didn't take a helper you'd think they would pay you almost double but nope only about 30% more. I'm 22 still live at home so I was fine with taking a helper while I looked for a better gig. How does McLane work if you want to take a helper? We got something like 13 cents a case and 17 a mile if I took a helper. Also had on time and perfect delivery bonus. I know you guys make a decent buck more than we did. It was basically the CR England of the LTL/food world

What barn are you out of? The only reason I'm not going to McLane is its a hour drive and Maines is only 6 mi from the house.