When Justin Bristol ’17 was a first-year student, he imagined how fun it would be to have a solar-powered food cart where people could charge their phones, socialize, and enjoy smoothies and snacks. A year later he bought a trailer and spent the next year converting it into an eye-catching, mobile venue for selling crepes.

Today, the company he established with friend Matt Fuller ’18, SolarCart Co., builds solar-powered food carts that are operated by chefs and other entrepreneurs in a partnership agreement.

“What kept us going was the thought-provoking qualities of the business,” said Bristol. “We were interested in making people think about the food they’re eating and the setting it’s served in. Eventually we realized that we were more interested in the process of building the carts than we were in serving food. So now we’re creating a unique setting for chefs and customers.”

Bristol describes his carts as “creatively built, solar-powered, prefab, affordable restaurants.” And the business is taking off.

“A food cart like this can create just as much volume as a restaurant but in a smaller space,” he said. “And it can be more creatively designed because we don’t have to be restricted by building permits.”

After modifying their original design multiple times, Bristol and Fuller came up with a standard design that chefs can personalize based on their menus, themes, and styles. They built one that looks like a tiny house for a client in Vermont, and another—seen selling poke bowls at URI football games last fall—is operated by Jen Wells Fogarty ’99 and business partner Michelle Frank. And now they’re working with Roaming Hunger, a California food truck-booking service that provides food trucks to corporate clients and major promotional events.

“Cities are starting to get concerned with the noise and pollution that food trucks produce,” Bristol said. “But ours are quiet and don’t pollute, so we’re optimistic for our future.”

This spring, Bristol hopes to have a solar cart operating as an outdoor café in a permanent location somewhere close to the Kingston Campus.

“It will have seating cabanas, industrial planters, and an inviting eating experience around green energy and social interaction with good people,” he said. “But it will still have the flexibility to travel to events. In 10 years, we’ll be franchising them.”

Todd McLeish