Alchemizza makes artisan sourdough pizza in Boulder, Colorado, and it does it out of a 14ft bus with no generator. Nothing rumbles outside the window and nothing has to be filled with gasoline before service. The bus runs on batteries, and the only fuel on board is the propane that fires the pizza oven.
It is also the first time we have fitted a Gozney oven in a build. Getting that approved took some convincing at the health department, and the way the bus is ventilated around it is worth explaining if you are thinking about a pizza truck of your own.
Walkthrough video
An all electric bus, without the generator
Most food trucks carry a generator in a box on the side. This one has the box, insulated and lockable, but what is inside it is a stack of lithium battery modules and an inverter. Every module is labelled with built in heating. That matters in Boulder, because lithium batteries should not be charged below freezing, and a bus parked outside overnight in January sees plenty of that.
The system is from Joule Case, a company that builds battery and inverter systems specifically to replace generators in food trucks. Its batteries charge from shore power, from solar, or from an inverter generator if one is ever needed, and it sells systems from about 5 kWh up to about 90 kWh. The point for the owner is simple: no fumes beside the service window, no noise for the customers or the neighbours, and no generator to service.
From the batteries, power runs through a 125 amp panel to 12 outlets, with two lights inside and two outside. That is enough for the refrigeration, the water heater and pump, the lights and the air conditioner, all on one quiet system.
Propane for one job only
Every food truck we build carries its propane in an underbelly tank, and this one is no exception. The difference is that here the tank has one job: firing the oven. There are no burners, no griddle and no fryer, so the gas line is short and simple.
The Gozney oven, and why the bus has a make-up air fan
The oven is a Gozney dome oven, sitting on a 48 inch Atosa worktop refrigerator with a backsplash, the MGF8409GR, which holds 13.4 cubic feet behind two doors. Dough and toppings stay cold right underneath the oven they are going into. The oven vents through its own chimney straight up through the roof.
A countertop pizza oven inside a vehicle is not something a health department signs off on automatically, and this one took a conversation before it was approved. Gozney builds its home ovens mainly for outdoor use, so if you want one in a truck, talk to the health department and the fire department about the installation before you buy the oven, not after.
The ventilation is the part people miss. A small, closed box like a bus can easily end up at lower pressure than the air outside, and when that happens a flue can pull smoke back down into the kitchen instead of sending it up. So the bus has a make-up air fan that pushes fresh air in, keeping the inside at a slight positive pressure. That pressure is what drives the smoke up and out of the oven chimney.
There is air conditioning with heat on the ceiling as well, so the bus is comfortable to work in on a 95 degree day at a festival and on a cold November Saturday at the farmers market.
The pizza line
The other half of the line is a 67 inch Atosa MPF8202GR refrigerated pizza prep table, with a full width cutting board along the front and room for nine third size pans of toppings across the top. That is where the pizzas are stretched and built, a step away from the oven.
Around it are two 6ft stainless work tables and three wall shelves for boxes and dry goods. Everything is bolted down, because a bus that brakes hard with a loose table inside is a bus with a dented wall.
Water, window and finish
There is a three compartment sink and a separate hand wash sink, a water heater and a pump. The tanks are 30 gallons of fresh water and 40 gallons of grey water, with the grey tank mounted underneath the bus. Colorado requires the waste tank to be bigger than the fresh tank, so that every gallon that comes in has somewhere to go.
The service window is 5ft by 3ft, in three sections, and self closing, which is what Colorado requires on a food truck window so it shuts when nobody is holding it open.
Inside, the walls and ceiling are FRP over half inch plywood and an inch of insulation, with trim covering every joint between the panels so there is no seam for dirt to sit in. The floor is aluminium diamond plate with a cove base where it meets the walls, which makes the whole floor easy to mop out. There is a K class fire suppression unit and an ABC extinguisher.
Getting a food truck licensed in Boulder
Licensing in Boulder has three layers: the county for the health licence, the city for where you can trade, and Boulder Fire-Rescue for the inspection.
Boulder County Public Health
The retail food licence comes from Boulder County Public Health. A mobile unit needs a plan review, a Colorado retail food licence and a commissary agreement, though a fully self contained unit can skip the commissary with an approved water and sewage plan. The plan review costs a $155 application fee up front, with hourly review fees capped at $900 due at the opening inspection. Reviews can take up to eight weeks, so start well before the truck is finished. A full service mobile licence is $481 in 2026, rising to $567 in 2027.
The City of Boulder
The city issues a mobile food vehicle licence, which runs for two years and expires on 1 March, and it wants a city sales tax licence first plus $1 million of liability insurance naming the city. Check the current fee with the city when you apply. Boulder’s own sales tax rate is 3.86 percent and the combined rate is 9.195 percent.
The trading rules in short:
- No more than four hours at any one location.
- At least 150 feet from residential zones and from existing restaurants, unless the restaurant agrees in writing.
- At least 200 feet between trucks on the public street, and street vending only in certain industrial and public zones.
- Parks need approval from Parks and Recreation.
Boulder Fire-Rescue
Boulder Fire-Rescue inspects food trucks on Wednesdays. It limits propane to 50 gallons of water capacity, roughly two 100 pound cylinders, and wants a shutoff sign, propane alarms and an annual leak test. Every truck needs a 2A:20-BC extinguisher, with a Class K added for grease cooking. Generators made after 2021 must be listed to UL 2201, which is one more thing an all electric truck like this one simply does not have to think about.
Trading outside Boulder
Under Colorado’s HB 25-1295, the city honours a health licence from another Colorado county and a fire permit from another city, which makes it far easier for a truck based elsewhere on the Front Range to trade in Boulder, and for a Boulder truck to trade elsewhere.
Where a pizza bus earns around Boulder
Boulder has about 106,000 people, a university, and some of the best attended food events on the Front Range. The Boulder County Farmers Market runs on 13th Street on Saturdays from April to November and on Wednesday evenings from May to October. The Boulder Creek Festival takes over the creek path every Memorial Day weekend and draws well over a hundred thousand people. A quiet, fume free truck is welcome at all of them, and it is especially welcome at private events and weddings where a generator beside the guests is the last thing anyone wants.
What a build like this costs
Custom food trucks start at $55,000, with a typical 16ft truck around $72,000. A battery system adds cost up front compared with a generator. Joule Case priced its own base system of 30 kWh with a 13 kW inverter at about $21,600 in 2023. What comes back is no fuel to buy, almost no servicing, and no noise. A pizza menu keeps the rest of the build simple, because one oven replaces a whole hot line and there is no hood or grease to deal with.
Frequently asked questions
Can a food truck run without a generator?
Yes. This 14ft pizza bus runs on a lithium battery bank and an inverter that sit in the old generator box, feeding a 125 amp panel. The batteries charge from shore power and the modules have built in heating, so they can be charged in a Colorado winter.
Can you put a Gozney pizza oven in a food truck?
It can be done, but it needs approval. This bus has a Gozney dome oven vented through its own chimney, and it took a conversation with the health department before it was signed off. Gozney builds its home ovens mainly for outdoor use, so talk to the health department and fire department before buying one for a truck.
Why does a food truck with a pizza oven need a make-up air fan?
A small closed kitchen can end up at lower pressure than outside, which lets an oven flue pull smoke back in. A make-up air fan pushes fresh air in and keeps a slight positive pressure, so smoke goes up and out of the chimney.
Who licenses a food truck in Boulder, Colorado?
Boulder County Public Health issues the retail food licence after a plan review, at $481 a year for a full service mobile unit in 2026. The City of Boulder issues a two year mobile food vehicle licence and requires a city sales tax licence and $1 million of insurance. Boulder Fire-Rescue inspects the truck.
How much propane can a food truck carry in Boulder?
Boulder Fire-Rescue limits food trucks to 50 gallons of propane water capacity, roughly two 100 pound cylinders, and requires propane alarms, a shutoff sign and an annual leak test.
What size prep table does a pizza truck need?
This bus uses a 67 inch Atosa refrigerated pizza prep table, which holds nine third size pans of toppings and has a full width cutting board, paired with a 48 inch worktop refrigerator under the oven.
More reading
- Boulder food truck permits: city licence, health and fire
- How much does a pizza truck cost
- Pizza food truck builds
- Colorado HB 25-1295 and what the reciprocity law actually does
Recent Colorado builds
- 16ft food trailer built for Longmont, Colorado
- 16ft toast and iced coffee trailer built for Boulder, Colorado
- School bus to food bus conversion for Grand Junction, Colorado
- 14ft shuttle bus coffee truck for Estes Park, Colorado
If you want a truck that runs quiet, or you have an oven in mind and are not sure it will pass, call or text and we will work through it with you before anything gets built. We have built around 500 food trucks, trailers, bus conversions and van conversions.
Jacob Varghese
Zion Foodtrucks
719-722-2537