The Food Truck That Was Never Delivered
A Bahraini entrepreneur says his dream of expanding his food truck business has collapsed after paying BD1,500 in cash to have a custom vehicle built — only for work to stop halfway and the fabricator to vanish. He has since filed a police complaint and shared his story exclusively with The Daily Tribune.
The owner had outgrown his small food cabin and wanted a larger truck that would let him scale up and join Bahrain's food delivery platforms. An earlier attempt failed when his intended vehicle could not be licensed, and ready-made trucks were out of his budget.
He eventually found a Bahraini fabricator offering custom-built food trucks and chose him deliberately to keep the work local. After discussing his financial situation, the price was adjusted to something he could afford. On June 17, he handed over BD1,500 in cash — around 80 per cent of the agreed total — after being told materials had to be purchased upfront.
He began visiting the workshop almost daily from June 22. What he found was silence. Calls went unanswered, messages about design details were ignored, and progress was minimal. The fabricator later apologised, citing illness. The owner accepted the explanation and waited another two weeks before construction finally began.
Work moved briefly. The floor was welded and the steel frame was completed. Then everything stopped. The premises were locked, calls went unanswered and the unfinished truck sat untouched.
While travelling abroad, the owner was contacted by the fabricator — not with an update, but with a request for the remaining balance, claiming the original payment was exhausted. The owner refused, arguing the work completed was far short of what was agreed. Contact ended after that.
Back in Bahrain, people familiar with the area warned him about the business. He checked official records and found the workshop appeared to be operating under a commercial registration cancelled in 2020.
A relative of the fabricator later promised to finish the truck within three days. Those three days stretched into weeks of assurances with no action. When the owner asked to retrieve his materials and take the project elsewhere, he says he was threatened.
He filed a police complaint shortly after.
"I am just a Bahraini looking for my livelihood," he told The Daily Tribune. He said he came forward not to recover his money alone, but out of concern that others may have faced the same situation over several years.
Related Posts