Hello All,

I am new to the forum and am in the process of trying to determine if my summer ice cream shack can be profitable.
I worked at a shack about 8 years ago in my city that has excellent foot traffic and is one of the hottest spots in town during the summer. The Neighbourhood is a great location full of street festivals and events all summer and surronded by restaurants and foot traffic.
There is a similar shack about 4 blocks away and across the street and a cold stone about 3 blocks away.

The site where the prior shack used to sit has been vacant every year since the former owners decided not to renew the next year. The reason they didn't renew was not business at all but family related. I have been talking to them about the business the last few weeks and they have helped greatly with the city permit requirements.

My goal is to get a temporary permit from the city to place my shack for the Months of May to August and then remove it. I have a couple of questions I'd appreciate any help with.

1. Has anyone on here ever had a temporary shack that was removed after the summer season?
Did you own the shack or rent it?
If you owned, what did you do with it during the offseason?
If you rented how hard was it to convert it to how you needed it?

I have been looking at various options for the building including:
1. an old mini-school bus,
2. an office trailer like the ones used at construction sites and
3. a converted steel shipping container

I am leaning towards the shipping container I found a company that has ones that are 8 feet by 7 feet.
I would customize it as follow:
2 overhead lights inside
2 windows in the front for orders and payment
Install 2-4 foot freezers against the back to hold the ice-cream
a sink with running potable water
a counter running around 2 walls of the inside to hold the cones, cash register, coffee makers
a price sign and flavors sign on the front
likely will do some sort of bright bold paint job on the container.

So what are the thoughts, terrible idea, great idea or somewhere inbetween?