Alumni brothers' journey from firm to food truck

You might not expect a corporate lawyer and a mechanical engineer to do a complete career pivot and start a plant-based food business – with no previous food industry experience – but that’s exactly what Tim and Luke Burrows did.

The Wellington-born, UK-raised brothers moved to Auckland for high school and later studied at the University of Auckland. A passion for audio engineering led Tim to enrol in a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons), while an interest in understanding the systems that shape society saw Luke enrol in a Bachelor of Commerce and Laws conjoint.

After graduating in 2011 and 2015 respectively and gaining a couple of years’ industry experience, they decided to take the plunge and open a plant-based food truck.

What compelled such a shift? A desire to make a difference to the planet’s health, says Luke, which stemmed from the personal decision to ditch meat and dairy after watching the documentary Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret.

“The driving factor behind going vegan was about environmental concerns and those real, existential threats,” he says. “Part of the allure was, can we do something meaningful that contributes positively?”

At the same time, says Luke, the brothers quickly discovered there was a lack of tasty vegan options around.

“There were salads and smoothie bowls. What if there was something actually delicious, greasy and vegan? Can’t be that hard, can it?”

They chose to reframe the potential risk of starting a venture as a positive – “if it all goes wrong, it’s just learning”, says Tim – and settled on burgers because “anyone can make burgers. We weren’t chefs; it was something that we could do.”

Tim put his entrepreneurial experience to use (he had previously founded an audio engineering company) and began building a food truck from recycled materials, with Luke helping outside of his day job as a lawyer. They devised a menu centred on handcrafted patties made from wholefood ingredients. The idea was to create a delicious, satisfying burger anyone could enjoy, which didn’t replicate meat in taste or appearance but recreated the umami component, juiciness and bite of a patty.

The Wise Boys food truck opened at the former No.1 Queen Street food truck zone to immediate interest. However, it was attending their first Vegan Food Fair in 2016 that highlighted the business’s potential.

“It was six hours of queues,” Tim reflects. “Hundreds and hundreds of burgers. We were like, ‘Holy shit. We’re onto something here.’”

In 2019 they opened a permanent store in Grey Lynn, which they spent three gruelling weeks building themselves, with some help from friends. Fast forward to 2025 and Wise Boys now has a second eatery in Commercial Bay, a range of sauces and patties stocked at just over 300 stores nationwide and numerous accolades to its name – including five medals at the Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards. It has even been lauded by celebrity couple Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker, who visited the restaurant in 2024 and shared their experience on Instagram.

Luke sums up what’s propelled their journey so far as “a healthy degree of naivety, passion and not taking ourselves too seriously”. He remains managing director at Wise Boys and hopes to continue growing the business and focusing on its culture, creativity and strategy – the elements he enjoys most.

Tim has partially stepped back and returned to his engineering roots at Auckland-based consultancy firm Dobbie. It’s been a wild ride, he says.

“We got to live that dream of running a business we really believe in, that’s doing something good. People were excited by it. There was momentum. There’s a good energy to that.”