CAPE CORAL, Fla. — A food trailer worth roughly $100,000 was stolen from a popular restaurant in Cape Coral.
The owners of the Twisted Lobster on Del Prado Boulevard say someone stole their food trailer over the weekend, and are asking for your help to track it down.
"It wasn’t a good feeling; there’s a little pit in your stomach when you lose something like that,” said Bean.
Mike Bean co-owns the Twisted Lobster with his brother in Cape Coral.
He says their red food trailer was stolen from the restaurant's parking lot between 10 p.m Saturday and 9 a.m Sunday.
“Sunday, yesterday, I came to work, didn’t really notice it was missing, but clearly it was,” said Bean.
A customer who's used to seeing the trailer sitting outside in front of the restaurant was the one to alert them the trailer was gone.
“I thought everybody was joking and then got a minute, came out here, and realized it was gone,” said Bean.
But Bean doesn’t believe this was a random act — he says whoever took the trailer knew what they were doing.
“They had to have scouted it, I mean, the trailer was 31-feet, it was extremely heavy, I own a Toyota Tundra, and that can’t pull it,” said Bean.
Bean says the food trailer was custom built in 2014 and operated throughout Southwest Florida for several years until parking it outside of the Twisted Lobster.
"It’s 31-feet, it’s red, it’s got a back little lanai on it, you can’t really mistake it," said Bean.
The food trailer now a landmark for the restaurant also serves as a buffer for the sound coming from Del Prado Boulevard.
Although not in circuit right now, Bean says the loss of the trailer is still a big economic blow.
“We would prep some food out it to help us keep up with the volume in the small building that we have,” said Bean.
Bean says they did have plans to put the trailer back into motion soon, especially after having been financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Looking into varies options moving out of these COVID days, obviously that would be fairly attractive being that lower overhead, less people, a little bit easier to control your costs,” said Bean.
Bean says he is thankful to all of those in the community who have already helped them spread the word by sharing a Facebook post posted by the restaurant.
"The local community is always great to us, they shared it over a thousand times between last night and this morning so I really appreciate everyone keeping their eyes out and looking out for us."
The Cape Coral Police Department says they are actively investigating, anyone with information is asked to contact them.
"I had a lot of staff that worked on it, including some hear that worked out it when we first got it and people were pretty upset just because we’ve had a lot of good times on it, and made money on it," said Bean.
