The Return of the King

Patrick King doesn’t wear a suit. He doesn’t carry a briefcase or keep his appointments in a Blackberry. He doesn’t have a personal assistant. Although King, 43, doesn’t have these things, to think that he is any less of a businessman and entrepreneur than someone who does would be a huge mistake. How could King be considered anything but a businessman? His company, Enterprise on Wheels, a mobile, one-stop grooming shop, where patrons can get a haircut, have their car washed, get a tattoo and a fish sandwich, has begun to take form exactly the way King envisioned it over 15 years ago, while staring at the ceiling of a prison cell.

“They say I was a drug dealer,” King says about his prison stint. “They never caught me with anything, but they gave me 15 years; is that justice?”

Not only did they say King was a drug dealer, they said King was THE drug dealer in his South Jamaica Queens neighborhood. His reputation rivaled those of legendary Queens Drug lords Lorenzo “Fat Cat” Nichols and Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff.

“King was the man around here. You always hear about Supreme; King was Supreme around here,” said Willie, a barbershop patron and life-long friend of King.

Rather than succumb to his incarceration, King kept his focus on what he would do with his life when he was eventually set free.

“They never really had me locked,” King explained. “They had my body, but my mind was free.”

King’s free mind sparked an idea one day while observing suspects being loaded into a truck, commonly known as a patty wagon. While a seemingly random occurrence, this idea would be the foundation of King’s post incarceration endeavors.

“One day I said to myself ‘Damn, there’s like 40 people in this truck; there must be a lot of room,” King recalls. There turned out to be quite a bit of room in that patty wagon and when King was released, he and his partner Kareem, a self-taught barber and contractor, purchased a used one and fashioned it into a barber shop on the inside.

“We built the whole thing by ourselves,” King said.

While the idea seemed stupid to most people, King was convinced it would work. By eliminating the binding lease of that comes with a brick and mortar shop as well as the rent and utilities, King saw an increased profit. His idea also provided the ability to travel when needed to serve the clientele.

The truck’s electricity is provided by a generator and water came from an in-house filtration system, built by King and Kareem, just like everything else in the truck.

“Why pay rent when I don’t have to?” King said.

That was two and a half years ago, and since then Enterprise on Wheels has seemingly hit warp speed. King has upgraded it from a patty wagon to a full-sized trailer, which will soon house a full staff of barbers, hair braiders, tattoo artists, a cab dispatch, a car wash outside and a seafood restaurant  further up the block. King wants his patrons to spend their day with him, as well as their money.

King’s enterprise shows no signs of stopping. He recently sold one of his trailers to a promotional company and they use it as a party truck. His next endeavor is in the whole sale foods industry. King and Kareem are designing a trailer which will store dry foods for sale. King is confident that just as in the past, his work ethic will put him ahead of his competitors.

“I’ll out hustle Costco, BJ’s and whoever the hell else,” King says as he finishes his set of shoulder shrugs on the bench in the corner of the shop. It appears that King works out regularly. His tattooed arms and shoulders have grown massive from the hours he spends on the bench. However, to say so would be an assumption, and King has made a living proving assumptions about him wrong.

“I’ve been in this neighborhood for 40 years,” added Willie, fresh from the barber’s chair. “I’ve known King since he was a baby. To see how he was on top of the world, fell down, but is on his way back to the top makes me proud.”