(Image: Technorati)
Look! Up in the sky!
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…
Oh wait, it’s just that heat-spewing, cancer-causing gas ball we call the sun.
Or, as some eco-conscious local restaurateurs see it: a renewable meal ticket.
Both brick-and-mortar and roving food vendors are angling to hitch their fortunes to Apollo’s chariot by strapping on photovoltaic arrays designed to drastically trim their energy bills.
Clare & Don’s recently added 30 solar panels to their roof, an update which should help the humble fish shack net lots of ultraviolet rays. C & D co-founder David Tax is very excited about inching off the grid and plans to celebrate their baby steps toward energy independence by inviting current and past Falls Church mayors to participate in a ceremonial “switch flip” Monday, August 23 at 6:45 p.m.
“In my not very extensive research I have not found any other restaurant that has solar power,” Tax said of his pioneering move, adding, “We are very excited about trying to do our part.”
Danna Andrews said she and partner Camille Dierksheide had hoped to add the eponymous cells–plus the requisite battery and power inverter–to their newbie crêpes truck before hitting the streets (they landed in Ballston in late July), but the pair simply came up short.
“We ran out of money,” Andrews confessed.
The L’Academie de Cuisine grads have since launched a Kickstarter campaign to try and fund the retrofitting by this Friday (at press time, they were less than 1/3 of the way to their $4800 goal).
But no matter the outcome of the online appeal, Andrews said the duo remain committed to going the solar route.
“There are few additions we’d like to make to the cart (in terms of equipment) which are dependent on the panels and inverter,” she said of their Helios-centric business model. “If we fail to raise the money through Kickstarter, then we’ll find other ways to raise the money. It may just take a little bit longer.”
Meanwhile, ex-Dino toque Stephan Boillon is preparing to take a two week-hiatus–tentatively set for 8/23-9/6–while his mobile food stand dons a radiation-collecting lid.
I’m glad SOMEBODY is reaping the benefits of the dog days in the ex-swamp we collectively call home…
–Warren