Rising Stars: Meet Josh And Ellie Rutila of Northport

Today we’d like to introduce you to Josh And Ellie Rutila

Hi Josh and Ellie, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My name is Josh Rutila. I am born and raised in this little town of Northport. I met my wife Ellie here in Northport in 2016. She is from Mexico City and was working at the time as a large animal veterinarian for a local goat farm. 2019 was a big year for us. We got married, bought our first house, had our first child Sophia, and also started a Mexican food truck called Antojitos.
The idea for Antojitos was never really in our plan. Ellie was always a great cook since i met her, and we really only brought up the idea of a food truck hypt0hetically, never really thinking it was a reality for us. At the time, I was working my side hustle as a weekend bartender for my best friend George Twine who owned a catering company. A few years before I met Ellie, I was really in need of finding somewhere to live here in Northport, which was quickly moving towards a town that I probably would not be able to afford to live in. George offered me a room in his house, and we quickly became great friends and he hired me to manage the bar service side of his catering company. He was a great chef, and it didn’t take too long for him to recognize how talented Ellie was after we had started dating, as she would often cook something authentic for us. After hearing a little bit about our food truck idea, he really encouraged us to try taking the next step and make it a reality.
Not long after we had Georges’ endorsement, we went on an extended family vacation to Disney in Florida with my mom, step dad, sister and her family. Coincidentally, Ellie’s brother’s sister in-law lived in Tampa (not far from Orlando) and had a food truck they used to operate for sale. We decided to go look at the trailer and ended up making them an offer which they accepted. Now we had to drag this food truck trailer all the way back to Michigan, but not before we took it too a trailer dealership who immediately told us we needed proper tires and new bearings before making that journey. Nevertheless, we made it home and parked it in George’s pole barn and began the process of turning this into a functions food truck.
We thought we bought a trailer that was turn key and ready to operate. We quickly found out that we had electrical, plumbing and a multitude of other problems with the trailer. We spent that entire winter of 2018-2019 gutting and rebuilding the trailer into a food truck that would work for us. We barely completed this project in time for what would be our first event and the Annual Northport Cars In The Park car show on Memorial Day weekend.
Looking back at that first event, it was pretty rough. I Suppose at the time, we were pleased by selling 30-40 orders that day. Looking back, I cant believe we were pleased with that. We only work weekends for the most part since we both have normal weekday jobs. Our main gig is opening at the Northport Music in The Park series which has live music for free every Friday night in the marina park here in Northport. This Music series is actually what originally sparked our idea for a food truck. We saw anywhere from 700-2000 people come into town any given Friday and thought we could make good sales there. In the years before, there was a local friend of mine selling wood fired pizzas and doing great. We thought maybe we could tap into that since he was the only vendor there. It turned out, that our first year coming to Music In The Park, he moved his operation up to The Mitten Brewing Company full time, and we were now the only vendor there. Things really took off for us at that point. We still commit ourselves to the Music In The park on Friday nights for the summer, and then usually open on Sunday all day in the same location, We like to keep our Saturdays open for private events since we have numerous requests all year for weddings, grad parties, ect..
We really could not be happier with the success we have had. We know we could probably take it to the next level with a brick and mortar, or even going open full time, however we are happy with our situation and it works for us. We know we have outgrown our little trailer we brought back from the dead, and an upgrade may be in our future, but we our content with what we have and that we can really make it work for us.

Also sidenote, my good friend George Twine passed away in June of 2023. He was so important to our family and the story of our business and we miss him greatly.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not smooth, I think I may have covered a lot of this in previous response.
We bought a trailer we hoped would be ready to work in but quickly found out otherwise.
We also had to lobby to the local village council to start permitting food trucks in town. This was a huge gray area before, but they ended up using us as a model for the ordinance that was eventually adopted.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My full time job is as a Department of Public Works employee for the Village of Northport. I am also a state licensed water distribution and treatment operator. I fully plan on this being my long term career. My wife Ellie has a degree as a large animal veterinarian. After the birth of our daughter, she decided to stay at home with her in the early years, and has recently been working in the Leelanau Township office. Our food truck had always been our side hustle on the weekends to make a little extra money. I believe we have had success in our food truck because of Ellie being able to bring an authentic style of Mexican food to a town that has never really had that.

The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
Covid was challenging to everybody, but in my opinion it was most harsh on the food industry. We were able to navigate through Covid relatively easily. When most restaurants were forced to shut down, we were able to be open as a take out food truck. We setup a preorder system with assigned times. We would package orders up and leave them on a table and the customer would leave cash in a bucket. It was zero contact. We even did this out of our driveway for a few weekends. Fortunately, that system didn’t last for long, and we were able to open in a more normal fashion. It was just another hurdle in our story that we were able to navigate. I don’t think we had it as bad as normal restaurants did though.

Pricing:

• prices range from $11-15 for a full meal

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @antojitos_little_cravings
• Facebook: @antojitostacos
• Other: [email protected]