Dana Ruiz
Founder
Started the company with one truck and eleven machines after twelve years running route for a national operator. Still covers the Wednesday route when someone is out.
A route company, not a machine company
Anyone can drop a cabinet in a break room. The job is showing up every week for years, and that is the part we built the business around.
- Trading since2011
- Locations on route340
- Counties served11
- Trucks9
Why we stayed small on purpose
We have turned down work outside the eleven counties we serve. A route that runs past its natural edge means longer gaps between visits, and long gaps are how machines end up half empty with a handwritten out of order sign taped to the front.
Nine trucks is what we can staff with drivers who stay. Every location has one named driver, and when that driver takes a holiday you get told who is covering before it happens.
We own every machine we place, including the ones we rebuilt ourselves in the shop. That means a repair costs us money, which is a useful thing for you to know about the person maintaining your equipment.
Northline at a glance
- Founded2011, by Dana Ruiz
- BasedNew Hope, Minnesota
- Team17 people, 9 of them drivers
- Locations on route340
- Machines under service612
- Longest-running accountHalverson Dental, since 2012
- Insurance$2M general liability, certificate on request
How the company grew
Fifteen years, one county at a time.
-
2011
One truck, eleven machines
Dana bought a used box truck and took over eleven locations in Brooklyn Park that a retiring operator was closing out.
-
2014
The New Hope shop
Moved into the Winnetka Avenue warehouse, which gave us room to refurbish cabinets instead of scrapping them.
-
2017
Card readers on everything
Cash use had dropped below a third of sales. We retrofitted every machine on route inside eight months.
-
2021
First micro markets
Six offices came back after the shutdowns wanting open shelving instead of glass. Those six became forty-two.
-
2024
Fresh food route
Added a second weekly stop for sites inside the loop and partnered with a licensed kitchen in Saint Paul.
The people you will deal with
Four of the seventeen. The other thirteen are drivers and shop techs, and you will meet yours at install.
Marcus Bell
Operations manager
Builds the routes and answers the service line. If you have called us about a jam, you have talked to Marcus.
Priya Nair
Accounts and reporting
Puts together the monthly location reports and handles the invoices for pantry and coffee sites.
Tom Vasquez
Lead technician
Rebuilds and refurbishes every cabinet in the New Hope shop before it goes out to a location.
Where we run
Eleven counties, all reachable from New Hope inside ninety minutes. If you are outside this list we will say so on the first call rather than stringing you along.
- Weekly service everywhere on this list
- Twice weekly inside the 494 and 694 loop
- Fresh food inside the loop and along I-35
- Hennepin County
- Ramsey County
- Dakota County
- Anoka County
- Washington County
- Scott County
- Carver County
- Wright County
- Sherburne County
- Chisago County
- Isanti County
What we will not do
Worth putting in writing, since these are the complaints we hear about the operator we are replacing.
Lock you into a term
No multi-year agreement. Thirty days notice either way, and we come and collect the machine at our cost.
Raise prices quietly
Any price change gets emailed to your location contact two weeks before it happens, with the reason.
Leave a dead machine
If a cabinet is down more than two business days we pull it and put a working one in its place.
Talk to Dana or Marcus
No sales team, no scripted call. You get one of the two people who actually decide what goes on the truck.