The food truck owner closed his truck’s window and began cleaning up the kitchen. After four hours and 150 customers, Don Japanese Food Truck’s popularity had caused it to run out of food for the day, so owner Edward Sumner began to prepare for the next day.

In December 2014, Sumner graduated from UT-Austin with philosophy and nutrition degrees. He said that when he was a sophomore, he realized he felt much more passion in the kitchen than in the classroom. Sumner opened his food truck in October 2015.

“[On opening day,] I had the most fun I ever had, ever, that day,” Sumner said.

Sumner has volunteered at a hospital, held different office and retail jobs, and worked at various types of restaurants.

“What I just couldn’t appreciate was the politics behind work,” Sumner said. “I would have an idea, and I would tell my superior, and a lot of times, they would be like, ‘That’s a very good idea, but we can’t do it because the company says so.’”

Sumner said he loves the freedom that comes with owning his own business.

“Before I would walk into class or go to work, I would kind of stop, and my brain would shift, like, ‘Oh, it’s game time. I need to sit and focus for 50 minutes in a chair,’ or ‘I’m about to go into work. I need to put my game face on and work for an eight, 10-hour shift,’” Sumner said. “Now, I just wake up and go through my day… I know that I’m just being myself, and I think that’s my favorite part.”

When Sumner started his business, he worried about its success, he said.

“I was incredibly paranoid,” Sumner said. “I saw my bank account go from five digits to three digits. I prayed a lot… But it turned out to be much, much better than expected.”

Sumner said he decided he wanted to work for himself when he was much younger.

“I was flipping burgers at a restaurant… and there was a regular taxi driver who would come in often, and he would always give me life advice,” Sumner said. “One of the things that stuck to my heart was when he told me that ‘when you work for somebody, you’re a nobody.’ And I still live to that word.”

Sumner said philosophy taught him to positively affect others through the way he lives his life. He uses this concept to shape the way he runs his food truck.

“People don’t need to pay 20, 30 dollars for a plate of food and put a fancy name on it, saying it’s gourmet or it’s high-class or upscale,” Sumner said. “That, to me, is completely irrelevant.”

Sumner’s food truck sits just a few blocks north of VERTS Kebap, another restaurant started by a UT alumnus. Michael Heyne and Dominik Stein started VERTS in 2001 right after earning their MBA’s from UT.

Before attending UT, the two owners lived in Germany. VERTS manager Peter Baca, who trains new employees in Austin and San Antonio, said Heyne and Stein founded VERTS because they couldn’t find kebaps in Austin.

“They decided, ‘Hey, let’s bring kebaps to Austin. Let’s bring kebaps to America,’” Baca said.

Baca has worked at VERTS for the past four years.

“I started working here when we had five restaurants,” Baca said. “It was a little hole-in-the-wall kind of place, and I saw all this opportunity…. I’m like, ‘It’s something that will take off, I know. It’s going to be like the next Chipotle.’”

Baca said VERTS has expanded rapidly since its start.

“There was a time where we actually opened a new restaurant for about a month and a half every two weeks,” Baca said. “That’s pretty exciting… Getting all pumped up, training a whole bunch of people, and then opening a new restaurant.”

The name “VERTS” comes from the nature of a kebap, according to Baca.

“We always try to eat the kebap vertically,” Baca said. “The vertical skewers of meats… [are] always rotating vertically, verts. Hence the name VERTS.”

About a year after VERTS opened, Cameron Lockley opened Gusto, an Italian restaurant, with his business partner, Eddie Bernal. Lockley’s vision for Gusto came partly from a trip he took abroad.

“After I graduated from UT and before I started work at an accounting firm… [my roommate and I] spent a few weeks going through Italy,” Lockley said. “It’s not any one town or restaurant in particular, but really just learning about the Italian culture, and the way they eat, the way they come together at the table, the way they view food, that I really did discover a love for Italian cuisine and the Italian culture.”

Lockley worked as an accountant in Dallas for a few years before opening Gusto. He said his accounting experience helped him learn how to run a business and make a profit.

Lockley started developing an interest in food and cooking during his second year at UT, hosting weekly dinner parties at his apartment.

“It became a pretty popular thing amongst my friends, and eventually even developed into a waitlist to come to dinner at Cameron’s apartment on Fridays,” Lockley said. “But more than just an interest in food, I discovered that I had a real interest in hospitality. What happens at the table when people come together and share stories and open up about themselves and just really enjoy a meal together.”

Gusto, a word that means “to enjoy” in Italian, gives Lockley an opportunity to do what he feels passionate about.

“[People] love coming together at the table to tell stories, and I really enjoy seeing the looks and expressions on people’s faces when they taste something, the feedback they give on their experience,” Lockley said. “That’s why I do it. I do it because I love our customers, and I love that experience.”