FAST FOOD: An electrical vehicle from Gallery Carts will patrol Lambeau Field. (Courtesy Gallery Carts)
Gallery Carts is on the move with its new line of electric vehicles to bring food and retail to patrons at sports venues and convention centers.
The concept has been around for years, but during the COVID-19 era, company officials have redesigned the vehicles for venues to safely bring a multitude of products to the people in a socially distanced world.
Denver-based Gallery Carts, formerly Carts of Colorado, partnered with Club Car, a leading provider of golf carts, and Ayro, an electric vehicle maker in Austin, Texas. Together, they custom formatted a vehicle with power supply to store, transport and distribute hot and cold food.
The electric vehicles cost about $60,000. The agreements are typically done through the concessionaires serving arenas, stadiums and convention centers, said company president Dan Gallery V.
He’s the son of Dan Gallery, who founded the company 40 years ago in Denver and remains the owner.
The batteries don’t require the charging stations used by electric cars that are produced by automakers. They plug into a standard wall outlet and the unit fully charges in six to eight hours, he said.
The key was Ayro developing a powered vending box with a lithium battery pack that attaches to the vehicle’s back flatbed. The box holds hot storage cabinets, refrigeration elements and hand sinks approved by local health departments, Gallery said.
“Strategically, we had to figure out the right platform to use to give clients the flexibility to use these vehicles,” he said.
To date, Gallery Carts has sold four electric vehicles to SoFi Stadium, the new $5 billion NFL stadium in Inglewood, Calif., and one unit to Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers.
Gallery’s deal at SoFi Stadium with Legends, the stadium’s food service provider, extends to 600 mobile carts in addition to the electric vehicles.
“What we continuously hear is people are looking for ideas around trying to get food and retail to where people are gathering, given the fact that they can’t congregate in high numbers like they used to at the venues,” Gallery said.
Gallery Carts has seven core models. They distribute coffee and bagels, pizza, sandwiches, and beer and wine, as well as merchandise. They’re all serviced by Club Car’s support network of 140 dealers nationwide.
Electric utility carts have been used for years in convention centers to deliver food directly to exhibitors on the trade show floor and to stock concession stands, said consultant Chris Bigelow.
It makes sense to use them as the landscape shifts in sports and entertainment, assuming the batteries are strong enough to carry heavier loads, such as pallets of beer, up stadium ramps, Bigelow said.
Gallery Carts has been in the electric vehicle space for about three years. It started as a marketing and branding effort at airports to boost sales over the typical food and retail carts. The electric vehicles doubled revenue through the aesthetics and novelty of the concept, Gallery said.
“Now with venues having the need to spread people out over a larger area, they can place these vehicles in the open and still capture revenue needed for the event,” he said. “We can see the shift and are expecting significant growth in the space after venues welcome fans back.”
