The Culinary Cruiser Team is made up of siblings, Josh and Leah Danoff, and our friend Jennifer Johnsrud. We are all incredibly passionate about food and completely obsessed with the current mobile food revolution. We also each have our own unique creative entrepreneurial streak. For us it undoubtedly came from our parents who owned a natural health food store and sold bottled water way before it was the cool thing to do. And Jennifer, well Jennifer’s just got it. All of our collective paths have led us here, somehow combining, interweaving, and preparing us for Culinary Cruisers. For a number of years Josh owned and operated a successful stonemasonry business in his hometown of Amherst, MA. He moved on to become an elementary school Special Education Instructor where his daily challenge shifted from, as a stonemason, trying to be smarter than the rocks, to trying to be smarter than his students as a teacher. He is also a writer, and while living in Los Angeles, led creative writing workshops for incarcerated youth. Jennifer is the co-founder of an investment management company with offices in Amherst, MA and Chapel Hill, NC, and has held a range of managerial positions at Ericsson and Nortel Networks. And although she received her MBA from the Owen School of Business at Vanderbilt University and now spends time studying Classical Languages and Literature, she really loves Duke sports, so if you know what’s good for you, you won’t say anything negative about the Blue Devils. Together we comprise Team Cruiser. Here at Culinary Cruisers we specialize in custom-built, pedal powered bicycle food carts. Our first bike, the Kombucha Cruiser, can be found serving up organic Kombucha on tap and homemade chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches at the Harvard, Medford, and Cambridge Farmer’s Markets. We are in the midst of a very interesting and exciting convergence of transportation and food. The food cart revolution is helping us rethink the tradition model of brick and mortar restaurants and is enabling us to experience different ways of food traveling to us, of us traveling to food. The idea for our mobile bicycle food carts was born out of the three of us sitting around talking about our love for kimchi (Korean fermented cabbage) and how we hoped it could one day, in terms of popularity, become the next hummus. We were trying to think of innovative ways to bring it to the marketplace and our initial vision was to have a fleet of Kimchi Carts. However, the more research we did on mobile commerce, the more we came across folks in different pockets of the U.S., as well as in all corners of the World, running mobile food businesses on cargo bicycles. We were blown away by all the originality, imagination, and ingenuity – people selling everything from gourmet coffee, tacos, chocolate, and biscuits, all on bicycles. We started shifting our thinking away from engine-powered trucks and toward pedal powered bicycles. And then we all smiled with the thought of being able to get kimchi from a bike, of being able to get all our favorite foods that are available at restaurants and on food trucks, from yes, a bicycle. At Culinary Cruisers we are passionate about design and innovation, and are building on the idea of the cargo bike being more than solely a means of transportation. We are using them to bring gourmet food and drink to places it has never gone before and delivering it to people in a sustainable and environmental friendly and conscious way. Our first Cruiser has hit the streets of Cambridge and Medford is serving organic kombucha from 5-gallon kegs and homemade chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches from CB Scoops. We’ve outfitting the bike frame with a custom built, dual-compartment, insulated cold box. The top of the wooden box has a tower with two taps as well as two wooden drop leafs that can fold up when the bike is parked – enlarging the surface area and giving the Cruiser the appearance and feel of an actual bar. The food truck movement, as well as the burgeoning industry of mobile bicycle food carts, are bringing entrepreneurs and foodies together and providing them with an affordable avenue to realize their culinary dreams. Whether it’s kombucha, gourmet ice cream sandwiches, whoopie pies or grilled cheese, the possibilities of where it could go next are endless. Want to be part of the movement? Our Culinary Cruisers offer mobile, eco-friendly, pedal powered solutions for your business. If you can think it, we can make it happen on a bike. So if you’d like some help marketing your products or figuring out a way to become a mobile business, please contact us. We’ll get you on your way to pedaling your own custom cruiser in no time. So c’mon everyone, are you on the bike or off bike? It’s going to be a happy and fun ride!