Justin and Rilee Campbell started dating in 2020, but before they were even engaged, they knew one day they wanted to own some kind of business. That day came sooner than later.
Inspiration struck the following year when they attended a wedding and saw their first luxury restroom trailer. “It was super hot outside and the AC just hit you in the face,” Rilee recalls. “It smelled nice, there was music playing, running water. It was a completely different experience.”
While on vacation they penciled out a business case for starting their own restroom trailer company. There were a few local competitors in their Bentonville, Arkansas, area, but they felt there was still room in the market. The area was growing and it’s home to a number of big companies including Walmart, J.B. Hunt and Tyson Foods.
The couple had some credentials for the task. They both came from entrepreneurial families — Rilee’s in construction and Justin’s in farming. She has a finance and accounting degree and has a corporate job in finance. He has a corporate job in agriculture and was familiar with operating heavy equipment.
The couple wasted no time. In the last few months of 2021, while holding down full-time jobs, they incorporated their business, got an SBA loan, ordered a restroom trailer, bought a truck, built a website, got started on marketing — and in their spare time got engaged.
FIRST CHALLENGE
The country was in the middle of COVID and everything came to a halt when the young couple considered their idea. That caused them to feel rushed to make a decision. “We realized if we’re going to try this business we have to just say yes now or we won’t have a trailer to rent out in 2022,” Rilee says. “So we decided to just take a leap of faith.”
Getting equipment was a challenge. “Trucks were hard to find,” Justin says. “I searched the entire country and found three we thought might work for us.” They settled on a 2015 Ford F-550 and put a Satellite 650-gallon waste/250-gallon freshwater slide-in tank on it with a Westmoor Conde pump.
Trailers were also hard to come by. Lead times were a big factor in deciding which supplier to use. “Satellite’s turnaround was the quickest in the market at the time and they had the quality we were looking for,” Justin says. The trailer — a four-stall unit from Satellite Suites — was finally delivered in March of 2022, and their company, Luxi Loo Rentals, was in business.
Most events were on hold but they did get their first job in May — a church office building experiencing sewage problems. “It was great,” Rilee says, “because when you’re a brand-new business it’s hard to get found on Google.” Coincidentally, it ended up being the church the couple now attends.
They got busy in the fall but did manage to find time to get married.
GROWTH
Business grew steadily. They work within about a three-hour radius which includes the corners of Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas. They added one or two Satellite trailers every year and now have six units (four two-stall, two two-stall), which they are able to store on their property.
“We know there are peaks and valleys in this business, with spring and fall being the heaviest times, but our rule of thumb for when to add a trailer is that a trailer in the peak season is booking out at least three out of four weekends a month,” Rilee says.
If a customer needs portable restrooms, the Campbells refer them to local vendors. And they have good relationships with a couple of other trailer companies in the area. They’ve worked together on larger projects and given work to each other. One has an ADA trailer, if they need one.
When water and electricity are not available, they bring their own. They carry a 275-gallon water tank, when needed. And for power they use Predator 5000 generators. “They’re inverter generators, so they’re really quiet,” Justin says.
“We started out with a really big generator because we were worried about having enough power,” Rilee says. “But most of the events needing generators are in the spring or fall, so we’re fine with the inverter.”
The couple built their website themselves but recently hired companies to help them with search engine optimization and Google ads. “One thing we’ve noticed is that unless you have a really good wedding planner restrooms tend to be one of the last things people think about, and they typically go to Google for that,” Rilee says. “That’s where a lot of our marketing dollars at the moment are spent.”
EVENTS
The couple has provided trailers for everything from high-end weddings and corporate functions to construction remodeling projects.
A particularly memorable event was an upscale wedding held outdoors in February, which involved a three-week setup. The couple stayed on site to make sure nothing went wrong and serviced the units every other day.
Rilee says a fun event their first year was for a Route 66 tour. One stop on the tour was a diner in Vinita, Oklahoma, that had a big festival in their parking lot. Justin’s memory of the event was less fun. “That was in November. It got below freezing that night and they unplugged the trailer and let it freeze,” he says. Fortunately there was no damage.
A big event requiring all their trailers for three weeks was for Up.Summit, an invitation-only VIP event to review the future of transportation, held at multiple hangars at an aviation field. Justin serviced the trailers every night between midnight and 5 a.m. “And they didn’t have water access so I had to refill the trailers with water, which was a big undertaking,” he says.
An emergency project came up when a 36-inch water main failed in a nearby town. A factory there took all their trailers. “I spent 24 hours delivering trailers and getting them set up,” Justin says. “And I was hauling water down there in the middle of the night.”
Winters are slow but the company does get a few projects related to Christmas, New Year’s and the Super Bowl.
“We pride ourselves on customer service and making sure we’re available for whatever our customers need,” Rilee says. “We believe we provide a good service for them and we have a lot of customers coming back.”
LESSONS LEARNED
Set up early. At one of their first events they set the trailer up on the day of the customer’s wedding. “But there were some questions we didn’t get clearly answered on sources of power and water,” Rilee says. In addition, the pump stopped working and Justin had to make repairs. “All the things that could go wrong went wrong. We made it work, but now we know what questions to get answered. And we set up a day or two before so there’s time to address any issues.”
Set pricing right. The couple learned the hard way that it doesn’t pay to go too cheap just to get business.
Anticipate Repairs. “We’ve had some colder winters that have done damage to faucets and lines so we’ve learned to optimize our winterizing processes to mitigate future damages,” Justin says. “And now we have an inventory of parts so when things do break we can fix them quickly,” Rilee adds.
NEXT STEPS
By the end of 2026, the couple expects to have done about 300 events since they started. And, to date, they have over 140 five-star reviews. Although asking for reviews can be awkward, Justin says he does it when he talks to a customer. And when Rilee sends thank-you notes to customers she includes a link and asks them to leave a review if they feel like it. They also added tap plates to every restroom stall so customers can tap it with their phone and leave a review. “Some are really neat and creative so it’s fun to see such great engagement from our clients,” Rilee says.
Rilee and Justin have high hopes that 2026 will be the year Justin can leave his job and go full time with the company. “We’re waiting for that right moment to take the leap,” Rilee says. “It’s such a seasonal business so we have to make sure there’s enough work every month.”
Another goal is to land more long-term projects. They’ve had a number of multimonth contracts, usually involving remodels — the longest one was seven months — but they’d like to get into longer contracts. “We have found it harder to land those because we don’t also offer porta potties,” Rilee says. “So our focus is to make the right relationships and connections.”
While their goal is to grow the business, they don’t want it to be at the expense of the personable service that is their hallmark, Rilee says. “Taking care of customers like family is what we strive for.”
Their main challenge currently is juggling everything. But overall they’re very happy with everything. “We love this business, this industry,” Rilee says. “It’s been a super fun thing that we can do together — the good and the bad.”
And they’re already thinking about the next generation as they welcomed a daughter in the fall of 2024. “When we can, we all go as a family to make deliveries,” Rilee says. “It’s fun. And as she gets older it’ll be fun for her to help out.”
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