Marquette student starts business, navigates challenges

Marquette student starts business, navigates challenges

Elliot Russell said, for him, food is business. The Marquette University student will cross the stage this weekend having made a mark on campus.

MILWAUKEE - Elliot Russell said, for him, food is business. The Marquette University student will cross the stage this weekend having made a mark on campus.

What they're saying:

"You could argue with somebody all you want, and they serve you a nice meal? Your taste buds aren’t going to lie to you," he said.

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Russell said food has also played a role in who he is.

"My mom, she’s French, so I always grew up with baguettes, stinky cheeses. My name was ‘Smelliot’ growing up," he said.

Elliot Russell

The backstory:

As a graduating senior, Russell said bringing his passion for cooking to campus required risks – and he went "all in." After a summer internship at Pete's Pops in 2024, he said he realized the way food brings the community together. He wanted to do the same with sandwiches and burgers.

"I just started testing out recipes. I started feeding my roommates, feeding my friends that were living on campus at the time, and they were like, ‘Man, this is pretty good,’" he said.

As word spread, Russell launched Good Eats. He bought a food cart and, later, a food truck. A couple of months after that, he received a call in the middle of the night that his food truck had been stolen.

"In that moment, I couldn’t think of anything else but ‘this is just a test.’ I’m just going to work my way through it and hope that the other side is better," he said.

Elliot Russell

Why you should care:

Keeping his vision intact, Russell leaned on support from his classmates to bounce back. Last spring, his peers showed up and sold at a Good Eats event at Marquette's Innovation Kitchen.

"It was really cool to see how the Marquette community supported me and really bought into my vision, and bought into the story," he said.

With the leftover money, Russell said he upgraded his equipment and got back to serving food on and off campus. That included events that served refugees and people experiencing homelessness – calling the initiative "Everybody Eats."

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"It wasn’t the money that I was chasing at the end of the day. I just wanted to use that to leverage other opportunities for people," he said.

Russell said, with something as simple as a sandwich, it does not take a superhero effort to truly make a difference.

"You do everything you can, and you just trust god that at the end of the day everything will work out," he said.

Marquette University said Good Eats is the university's first official student vendor to partner with a campus space. Russell said he hopes his story inspires more students to fearlessly lead with purpose.

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