Green taxi service set to expand

Emily Fox
Contributing Writer

Joey Anderson was flipping burgers at Wendy’s two years ago and started to wonder where all of the french fry grease was going.

The leftover grease sparked Anderson’s interest in biodiesel leading to the conception of a bio taxi.   Anderson and his brother Jeff run their taxi service, Bio Taxi, purely on the french fry grease acquired from local Wendy’s franchises.

The alternative taxi started early this summer after Anderson, a VCU creative advertising junior, and his brother got their first bio fueled car on the road.  The brothers are happy with their business venture, but the Bio Taxi quickly has consumed their lives.

“It has been increasingly more busy.  As soon as you think you have one matter of operations down, something else needs to be taken care of.” Joey said,  “There is really no down time.”

When the business began, the Andersons worked as the drivers of only one car, a 1999 Mercedes Benz e300.  Now, a few months in, they have a second car, a Volkswagen Jetta, and four more drivers who evenly split up the hours worked into their pre-existing class schedules.

“Those of us who are students can expect to work certain nights or morning when we have off,” Anderson said.

The second car started running in early October and the brothers say they are relieved.

As busy as the Andersons have been, their success is apparent.  Although the brothers have been successful they have encountered some roadblocks, like the slow process of getting their second car legal and on the road.  Now that the Jetta is functional, they plan on running both cars on the weekends while only the Mercedes runs for the entire week.

The Anderson brothers already have begun to think about the business’ future, with plans to expand.

“We are trying to expand as fast as we can without going outside of our limits or control,” Anderson said.