Margaritas On Wheels: The Dock Unveils 'Chartered Flight No. 1'

JOLIET, IL — When it comes to The Dock at Inwood, the Trafton brothers are always up to something wacky. Rick Trafton and Mike Trafton, both retired Joliet Police Department officers, returned to Joliet Thursday evening with Chartered Flight No. 1. It's a lime-green painted 2002 delivery van that has 209,000 miles on its odometer, but runs great, the Traftons said.

From this moment forward, The Dock will be hitting the road —typically traveling up to 45 minutes from Joliet — to provide food and drinks for party events. The Dock's first scheduled event is next Saturday, Sept. 12, an employee appreciation party for Joliet's D'Arcy Motors.

"When the coronavirus hit, we had to be agile to keep the business going," Rick Trafton told Joliet Patch's editor during Friday morning's interview in front of Chartered Flight No. 1.

"And when the governor limited capacity and large gatherings, a food and margarita truck was going to be the way we go."

Since opening in December 2018, the Dock at Inwood has featured a full-service kitchen and 21 margarita flavors. The Dock has now sold more than 28,000 of its enormously popular Margarita Flights, the Traftons said Friday.

The Traftons got back to Joliet Thursday evening after traveling to St. Louis to pick up their new box truck that just got its Jose Cuervo advertising wrap finished.

"Jose Cuervo agreed to sponsor our wrap because we are the No. 1 buyer of Jose Cuervo tequila, we're their No. 1 bar in northern Illinois, and they want to use the truck for their private events," Rick Trafton said proudly.

Chartered Flight No. 1 is now available for scheduling Joliet-area private events and corporate outings, weddings, golf outings, birthday celebrations and more, Mike Trafton said.

"We're going to be looking for a person minimum for any event," he said. "We'll do a food and margarita package party."

Since The Dock at Inwood posted a photo of its new Chartered Flight No. 1 truck on its Facebook page Thursday, "we've had 15 inquiries in the past day," Mike Trafton told Joliet Patch.

If you were hoping Chartered Flight No. 1 might be cruising around your neighborhoods similar to an old-fashioned ice cream truck, that's not in the cards, yet.

"We don't see it as a delivery truck. Nothing is off the table. It would just depend on a lot of things. It runs on diesel, and it burns a lot of gas to go 3 miles," Rick Trafton said.

"It's not going to be an ice cream-type truck," he continued. "We're geared toward private events. We think it's going to be our niche to our way of the future for small parties, and we're already looking into Charter Flights 2 and 3 and 4."

The Traftons told Joliet Patch that if the new delivery van becomes a huge hit, they would like to operate as many as four Chartered Flights delivery vehicles from The Dock at Inwood, 3000 West Jefferson St. in Joliet.

"We want to cover all the Chicago suburbs," Rick Trafton told Patch.

"If it's big enough, we can go anywhere," added brother Mike Trafton, Joliet's retired chief of police. "We have a full-service kitchen, so we'll do fiestas, barbecue packages, we can customize any event."

People interested in having The Dock send Chartered Flight No. 1 to their event can call The Dock at 815-630-3966 or email julie@thedockatinwood.com, the Traftons said.

Lastly, The Dock's owners wanted to give a shout out to all their loyal customers during these challenging times with the pandemic and current shutdown of its indoor restaurant because Will County's coronavirus cases spiked during August.

The Dock remains open daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. for takeout, and it has an outdoor patio area. "If it wasn't for our loyal customers," Mike Trafton said, "we wouldn't be in the position that we're in.

"It really means a lot that they're supportive of us, and we're proud to be a part of this community. I'm from Joliet. I'm not going anywhere, I'm going to stay here forever."