Entrepreneur from The Foundry hopes to change the meaning of fast food

SUGAR HOUSE — As clouds rolled in from the south and rain made a pass through Friday evening's Farmers Market, start-up restaurant owner/chef Adam Kaslikowski checked the elements inside his chafing pan.

"The last thing this country needs is another hamburger," he said, as he slid the lid back over the Thai coconut and rice he had just dished up for a customer who decided to go with the balsamic tofu instead of the pepper chicken.

It's not that there's anything wrong with hamburgers, the ubiquitous staple of the uniquely American fast-food lunch, he said.

"Hamburgers are great," Kaslikowski said. "Had one a couple days ago. But five or six or seven times a week?"

That's five or six or seven times too many times to eat what Kaslikowski, who is a runner and weightlifter in his quickly dwindling spare time, considers "pretty much a fat sandwich."

Sensing he might have just come across as an "uber-hippie," the freshly minted bachelor of business administration, who has a dream to change the American fast-food palate one spicy shrimp plate at a time, added that he's just trying to provide a healthful, locally grown, ethically square, nutrition-loaded meal that is just as fast as fast-food lunches served up by the billions by a clown, a crown and a king.

META Restaurant is one of 19 businesses started since May by the teams of entrepreneurs-in-training at The Foundry, the latest iteration of the David Eccles School of Business' long tradition of providing real-world experience as part of its academic mission.

The school also oversees the country's only student-founded and -operated venture capital fund. It is one of the reasons the University of Utah is tied with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for developing the most university-related spin-off companies.

Kaslikowski's fledgling firm, at this point, is staked to his dream, a traveling vending stand, the weekend markets and catering gigs. His menu offers the three traditional protein selections of steak, shrimp and chicken, as well as tofu, that come with a choice of four sides: coconut rice, curry couscous, spicy tomato quinoa and penne pasta with spinach.

The fare is prepared in a borrowed kitchen between midnight and 5:30 a.m. prior to the weekend Farmers Market that, for another month or so, will inhabit the mostly flat and commercially fallow southwest corner of 1100 East and 2100 South.

By this time next year, META's itinerant days will be history, Kaslikowski said between customers. "I'm not sure on the exact location."