Welcome back to The Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. Uh, as I say, each and every time, we appreciate you guys spending, uh, time with us each week when we talk about, uh, the world of restaurants and, and, uh, today is no exception. We're excited to talk to Dwayne. Dwayne and I have been, uh, been, been, uh, back and forth via email, reschedule this, this, uh, recording. So I'm excited to finally let, uh, the world know what Dwayne gets to do.
So Dwayne, why don't you introduce yourself to our audience, who is Dwayne, and then we'll talk a little bit about what Dwayne gets to do for a living.
Thank you. Thank you very much and uh, thanks for the opportunity. Uh, like said. My name is Dwayne Waterman. I'm with Polar Leasing Company. Um, we rent, uh, temporary cold storage units across the country. I.
Wonderful. And Dwayne, I know you and I were talking a little bit about, about it, um, pre-show, but what e what exactly does, does that mean? You know, talk to me a little bit about what is temporary cold storage? You know, I think all of us have, uh, you know, all of us have refrigeration in our homes and in our restaurants, but, uh, but you know, you guys have got some pretty unique applications that you guys have been helping, uh, helping different brands in food service. Uh. Deal with.
And so I'd love to talk a little bit about, define what, what that industry is and what it is that you guys do as far as, uh, temporary cold storage.
Uh, well, they're actual walk-in coolers. Uh, they're, they basically sizes eight by 10 and eight by 20, uh, ground resting walk-in cooler freezers. Uh, they're dual temperature, electric powered, and they can be changed from a cooler to a freezer at well.
That's incredible. So talk to me a little bit about kind of the backstory. Talk to me, where is polar leasing coming from? I know you guys are a Midwest based company, you know, and again, you and I talked a little bit about that pre-show, but, um, up until we got connected to beyond the podcast, I was like, cult story. Like, help me understand this. So what, gimme the backstory. Where's, where's this whole thing come from? And, and why was it originated?
And then I wanna really talk about how you guys deliver and, and what, uh, go-to market looks like.
Sure. Well, our company, our, our parent company is Polar King. Um, it was been around for about 30 years, um, designing the all fiberglass seamless. Cooler freezer unit. Um, and basically it's to free up storage inside any building. They would build this unit outside of your structure of your facility to free up the inside space for cooler freezer needs. Um, then they started to branch out and create, build smaller units. Um, and that's how Polar leasing, uh, came about not too many years ago.
And we branch out from there and it's exploded.
Yeah, I'd say I mean it, and again, and you and I were talking a little bit about a pre-show about kind of the use cases, but, um, still super intrigued. I, I guess about, you know, so you've got cold storage inside, you've got your walk-in freezers, you walk in, everybody that's been in a restaurant, um, for any length of time has, has had to deal with The, you know, deal with that. The walk-in fridge, the walk-in freezer.
Um, talk to me a little bit about kind of even what that process looks like. 'cause it sounds like, I mean, it almost sounds too good to be true that I've got, you know, I've dealt with in the past, um, you know, dry storage where, you know, you throw a trailer out back and, and you can throw dry storage in there. But I've never even considered. The fact that you guys have the ability to do something like that.
So talk me through even kind of what that process is for those that, that are, that are struggling or get stuck in a, in a circumstance where they may need additional, um, storage space and, you know, in the cold storage area.
Actually it's very similar, uh, to when you'd order a dry storage unit. You'd order a container, um, and they drop it to where you need it on your property for that need. It's the same kind of concept. Um, it will need to be hardwired to your electric panel or generator, uh, for power. Um, but it is a simple connection and it's just basically, I. Uh, you'd contact us and we deliver basically anywhere that's firma level.
So we would drop it anywhere on your property, um, that has a firma level surface, and that can be connected to a power source.
That's, uh, I mean, it's a, it's a very, again, unique value prop. Um, you know, that you guys can do this and, and talk to me a little bit about what the, I guess, you know, it sounds like it's a, it's an industry that's been around for a little bit, but this is something that you guys have kind of started. Where are some of the, the things that you guys are finding The best use cases for, for these circumstances. Like, you know, and again, you and I talked about it in restaurants.
Um, and again, uh, I'll, I'll, I guess I'll, I'll do a, a quick little plug.
There's a restaurant in our town that does quite a bit of, um, food for the less fortunate around the holidays, and they all do, you know, Turkey giveaways at At Thanksgiving, it happens to be a barbecue place here in town and they, they put a cold storage unit 'cause they needed to bring in hundreds of these turkeys and then they put in a warm storage unit to, to store those things and, and hold onto them prior to delivering them to the homeless that were, were in town.
Is that, is that a kind of a, a unique business case or is that kind of su super common in your world? Is that stuff that, that you see happening kind of on a regular basis?
It's actually very common. Uh, it's becoming more common each year. Uh, but we rent to a lot of food pantries across the country for that exact need. Uh, mostly during the holidays to store turkeys and hams as you stated, or other products, um, for the less four or churches, or like I said, food pantries that, uh, handout food. So.
Got you, got you. Um, so you, you talk about getting, um, in your description, Dwayne, you talked about, um, being able to run these things off a generator and or hard wiring. Talk to me a little bit about what that process looks like and what the, what the electrical needs are because, um, really where I want to try and steer this conversations, if somebody's at a place where they're like, oh, this sounds great.
Now how do I get, how do I get into a circumstance where I, I realize, oh crap, I bit off more than I can chew and I don't know what I'm doing. So talk me through kind of what those needs are and what the assessment is that you guys have to do as you guys are starting to engage with people that are, that are looking for this type of solution.
Okay, well, our units are not plug and play per se. It does not come with any cord. It sounds complicated, but it's a very simple hardwired connection. Um, we recommended an electrician to provide that cord and they use a connected unit. Very few problems to connect and disconnect the unit when needed. Um, it runs on a two 20. 30 amp, single phase, um, which accommodates a lot of different, uh, of the industry.
Um, a lot of the larger units, the 40 and 53 foot, uh, trailers, per se, require a lot higher voltage. Um, so it makes it, uh, a little bit more not as cost efficient, uh, when you're, when you need a, a temporary unit. Our unit is, uh, less. Or requires less voltage for connections. So it's, it's a lot easier connection. It's a lot cheaper because of the time and the cord used, so it's
Yeah. Makes it, makes it a better value proposition. I'm gonna pivot just to, uh, actually no, I'm gonna stay on this thread real quick. Dwayne, where you talk about a level service, how level does it need to be? I'm on a construction site. I'm in a disaster area. I am, I. You know, I'm out and I'm, I'm a restaurant, I'm a church that wants to go put it on the back lot, you know, to be able to go, go, um, feed the less fortunate throughout the holidays. What does that need to look like?
What, you know, kind of talk to me about the size requirements, the, you know, even the, the surrounding areas and all of that and how, how level does it really need to be for those that are, you know, I'm doing air quotes for those that are on audio only.
Right. Well, it needs to be as level as possible for the unit to work correctly. Uh, the, the air unit to the compressor and the condenser for the, uh, cooler freezer, um, should be as level as possible. However, it can be placed on gravel ground, like you said, for a disaster areas emergency need. Um, shims can be used, um, if there is, if it's too much of an incline or decline. And, uh, as long as it's safely to enter in and out, uh, we do that all the time.
We recommend and help our customers that have may have a, a slight incline, uh, to use shims. Uh, so it's safely placed.
So in that, I'm assuming you can't just go order one online and have, uh, FedEx deliver these things. 'cause they're they're probably pretty big. Talk to me a little bit about what, what that process looks like. Like walk me through, I call Dwayne, I get ahold of Dwayne and I want one of these units and I need it for 60 days on my lot. Um, what does that process look like from the time I engage with your team till the time that I get a unit delivered?
Um, you know, walk me through that whole process for, for those that are intrigued about, uh, about how this may work.
Sure. Um, normal lead time, uh, depending on the circumstances, is one to three business days. From the time we start talking to that we have something delivered to your locations, one to three days, depending on the location.
That's insane. Sorry,
no, that's okay. The longer distances may take a, a little bit longer and depending on how long the contract and payment process, which is very simple, we try to make it as simple as possible. Uh, everything's basically digital. Uh, so once you place your order, we go through a few steps. We place the order with our third party freight partners, which are depots. House our units.
We have over 95 across the country that once they get the order, they would deliver the unit and place it where your customer would need it and then return and pick it up these depots house and take care of or basically, and deliver and pick those units up for us.
That's pretty incredible. And what's the, I mean, as far as minimum times, I mean, do people use them for a week? You know, is this something that, you know, I'm, I've got some work getting done on my, on my walk-in, and I don't want the food to spoil. Um, I can go rent one for a week. It obviously it's gonna cost me some money and some time and some energy. Um, but, you know, I guess, what's the minimum amounts of time that people can use these units for?
The minimal rental period we offer right now is one week. Okay, we, and if they need it less than that for a special event, we can pick that up earlier. But that is our lowest rate that we offer is one week. Uh, our rates we can rent up to one in two years or even longer. The longer you rent, the cheaper it is per month. So we offer a discount on that effect.
It's pretty, uh, I mean it's kind of cool and again, I'm just thinking of some of the use cases from the re some of the restaurant brands that are out there. Um, talk, talk me through any kind of special occasions. 'cause again, we get these phone calls from some of our brands where they're like, I, I had a brand recently that was opening, uh, a pop-up.
The F1 Formula one race that was in Vegas a couple of, a couple of months ago, and they wanted a full, you know, 20 terminal POS system for two weeks. Um, are those circumstances that you guys run into where they're, they're doing county fairs or they're doing, you know, these different venues? Or is it, is it primarily on a, on an actual property.
No, we do many of those events. In fact, we were there at the F1 in Vegas. I had,
Did you get a chance to go.
I, I don't get to go, but I de I definitely ordered units for that
Okay.
a couple of, couple of vendors that order those. So that's how easy they can be placed in, in and out of something like that. But we, we, we rent to, uh, special events like that, like fairs, festivals, um, yearly, um, events for, uh, any kind of organization rely on us for a short term, um, cold storage
I love it.
mm-hmm.
love it. I'm gonna pivot a little bit, Dwayne. Talk to me a little bit about, you talked about the fact that you guys have got Both a, a unit that can both freeze and just do regular refrigeration, uh, that sounds like some pretty crazy tech. I, I, I guess, uh, I've never considered my home freezer or my home fridge changing the temperatures that drastically because they, they seem like there's a pretty big disparity between the, uh, the temperature differences.
And I mean, while the tech probably sounds the same, I, I didn't realize that that was even something that was possible. And now you put it into a temporary storage unit. That you can play somewhere. Talk to me a little bit about what that looks like.
Okay, well, we do have separate coolers and freezers. The majority of our rental fleet though, are dual temps. They're DT units. Uh, the eight 10 and eight 20 are dual temperature. Once they're connected to the power, uh, you just switch it to either a cooler or freezer and then dial your desired temperature. Um, you do the same thing by switching for that. There's, it's just that simple for our customer. The, uh, how we have each unit set up for those dts.
That's interesting. I mean, again, I didn't even realize that that was a thing. Um, I know in the world of refrigeration and in the world of really cooling, um, IOT's become a big deal. Um, talk to me a little bit about how that may play into, you know, temperature monitoring in these, in these temporary units. 'cause uh, again, do you guys have anything? Related to that. 'cause I, I do find that clients are trying to figure out is the chicken stored at the proper temperature?
And if not, then what does that look like? Can you educate some of our listeners on, on what and what that world looks like and how you guys might, uh, might help solve for that.
We do have, um, a monitoring system that we have on most of our units, if not all of our newer units for sure. Uh, it's not a service we offer to customers at this time. We're still working out, um, some bugs here and there to possibly, um, offer that in the future. Uh, right now we have a monitoring service for our service, uh, our service department, um, that we rely on. Now basically keeping track or checking those units once service is ordered.
If it's ordered, I mean, so it's not something that comes with when you order. Okay, we're gonna monitor it 24 7 for you. Um, we rely on our, our product. It is a, is a good product and if anything would go wrong, we offer 24 7 service to get a tech there to work on it as soon as possible, so hopefully no product is lost.
Yeah, it's a I'm, and again, I'm still blown away with the fact that you guys are one to three days to get a unit delivered. That's, uh, that seems like a very, uh, just an interesting approach. Um, what are some of the things that people don't think about as it relates to this world? Dwayne, like, what, what is, what precludes people from doing this? 'cause I, up until we got got introduced, I didn't even know that something like this existed.
I guess I probably should have known, but what, why, why, do you think That.
Um, why do you think, I mean, you've, you've talked about the growth that you guys have had, and I, I, I love hearing that story, and at the same time, it sounds like there's a, this is an unknown quantity that, that, uh, that we need to get out to the world to let people know that this exists so that they can start to think about some of those different unique cases that, uh, that they could be using them for, but they just didn't even know that it was a, an option.
Right. Well, um, prior to this, I mean, there, there's. There are temporary, uh, uh, boxes out there that you can rent that are large tractor trailer types, uh, that can be accessed through ramps. Uh, this makes it easier because they're ground, they're ground resting. People can, you know, customers can walk in and out. It's a safety. Um, there are, there're seamless boxes. Uh, so we rev revolutionized the, uh, the industry with the fiberglass, fully fiberglass, uh, seamless. Construction.
Uh, so that has changed that, uh, the, the issues that that come up from time to time are electrical. Um, now it's a simple electrical connection and it's usually pretty cost efficient, mostly in the operation. Um, your operation costs are a lot cheaper than using a gas powered. Um, the older styles
Probably too. A lot quieter in in that environment. 'cause I've been at places where generators running outside. You're like, can you please turn that thing off? 'cause it's making it miserable in here.
Right. And, and for special events they have to use generators depending on if they're out in fields or, you know, for Ferris and stuff. But for the aspect of, for the electrical operation, um, it's more cost efficient for, uh, per month, it's also quieter. Um, and it's a lot safer to enter. So we've changed that aspect instead of having, um, you know, going from the gas powered units that are out there. We tried to give them a better, safer option.
And that aren't sitting on this trailer and all, all that entails with that. Are you at liberty to talk about any of your success stories for restaurants? I love hearing success stories from people, you know. If you know of anybody that, uh, that might be, you know, could tell the story even of the F1 thing. 'cause that'd be cool for people to hear, but.
Uh, do you have anybody that that, that you think, uh, has used these in a unique way in restaurants that, uh, that might help, I guess, spark some interest in some of our restaurant brands that are sitting here listening, going, I didn't realize that was something that somebody might be able to do.
I know I'm, I know I'm jumping this at you right in the middle, but, uh, but I figured, uh, I figured it would be good for hear people to hear one or two, uh, really good success stories that you've, you've got Dwayne.
Well, uh, there's, I'm not sure about success stories, but there's, there's numerous companies out there, organizations that rely on us, uh, uh, for, um, major sports events like the PGA. Uh, there's a mobile kit, a lot of mobile kitchen companies out there that, uh, are. Spread across the United States that, that rely on us for temporary cold storage to go with their mobile kitchens.
Uh, they sometimes have coolers, but they als they always need more, and they rely on us, uh, to basically follow them for their renovations or new construction builds or special events.
I love it. I love it. What did we miss in today's conversation, Dwayne, about kind of what Polar does? I mean, I, I love the idea of, uh, and, and again, I'm, I encourage our listeners to think about the different use cases that they could have. 'cause as Dwayne said, they, they've got, you know, leases as, as short as a week and as long as a couple years, depending upon what your business need is.
But what else did we miss in our conversation that we should, uh, should have let our listeners know? Uh. Know that are options out there that you guys, uh, you guys are thinking about doing that, that solves some real problems.
Uh, one of the biggest, uh, pros, um, compared to other companies, other types of construction, is our, is our seamless construction. Our, our fiberglass. It basically holds the cold in longer. It releases less air. So your operating costs. A lot cheaper than many other, many other types of units. Uh, so that's, that's probably one of the most important things people, um, ask about is how efficient is this am, am I gonna be spending a lot of money on keeping the upkeep on it?
Um, we, with the 24 7 service and the seamless and quiet operation of the unit, it, it really has become an asset for a lot of different businesses.
Yeah. And, uh, I, I can imagine that, uh, that idea because, uh, well, and it, and it's, again, it's still so interesting to me the more I get people that are doing equipment online, the amount of tech that goes into these things, and just how, you know, I mean, refrigeration's been around for a number of years, but.
The innovations that go into these things to really help people to make their business better and to really give them opportunities to, to operate in different ways that they couldn't before is, uh, is always really, really, really cool. So, Dwayne, how do people get in touch to learn more? Is it just jump on the website? Do they, uh, contact you?
Talk to me a little bit about more, more about what, uh, engagement might look like and, and as you said, it's, uh, you guys try to make it as seamless as possible. And so how, how should, uh, our listeners, if they're interested, uh, engaged with you and, uh. And, uh, learn more about what, uh, polar leasing's doing.
Okay, well, we have a very good website. Uh, go to ww polar leasing.com and anybody can help you from there. Um, that shows you a, a, a good interface to contact somebody either via text or email. It actually shows how the units are powered, delivered. And, uh, how they're basically constructed and you can basically a hold of us anywhere in the world with that. Um, also Polar King, our sister company, you can also visit them at the same, uh, address. It has the link on there.
I love it. And to our listeners, guys, as I said at the onset, I know you guys have got lots of choices, so we appreciate you guys spending time. Dwayne, thank you so much for sharing a little bit about, uh, the idea of what you guys are doing. I love, uh, I love hearing about innovative stories and innovative companies that have, uh, that are really changing the landscape of what it is that we do. Uh. And restaurants and restaurant tech. So thank you for jumping on.
If you guys haven't already subscribed, go ahead and subscribe to the newsletter. Once a month you'll get an email with all of the content that we delivered throughout the month. Um, to our listeners. Make it a great day.
thank you very much for having me.