Joel Glatz, head chef at Maine College of Art, has lots of options for filling his summer months, when the school’s kitchen is closed.

One year he worked as a summer camp chef. Another, he managed the general store on Great Diamond Island. This summer, he decided to go into business for himself by opening a food cart in Portland.

Glatz, 56, regularly parks his Yellow Cart (it has a big yellow umbrella) at a sweet spot on Commercial Street near DiMillo’s and Long Wharf, near pedestrian crossings and boat tour launches.

“All of those other jobs take me away from home and make me cranky and keep me indoors in a hot kitchen, and this is beautiful here today,” he said last week as he was busy making lobster grilled cheese sandwiches for tourists.

This has been a banner year for food carts and food trucks in Portland. The number of food carts in particular has exploded. The city has handed out 10 food cart licenses, more than double the number awarded three years ago.

“We get a lot of younger people applying, people in their early 20s,” said Janice Gardner, who works in the city’s business licensing department.

The number of new food trucks is holding steady at six – down four licenses from last year, but about the same as 2013. Still, that means there may be 16 new mobile food vendors roaming the streets of Portland this summer, selling products as varied as popsicles and Japanese street food. There’s now a total of 20 active food truck licenses in Portland, according to Gardner, and 23 active food cart licenses.

Talk to the owners, and they all have different reasons for being on the street. Some, like 27-year-old Ed Shevenell and 26-year-old Kari Williams, are using their cart as a stepping stone to something bigger. Both veterans of the restaurant industry, they own Snappy’s Tube Steaks, a gourmet hot dog cart that moves around via antique motorcycle.

“We definitely have aspirations to get a bigger food truck,” said Shevenell. “We just wanted to get our feet wet and experience this.”

Brendan Parsons, 26, owner of BP’s Shuck Shack, has experience working on oyster farms and in the catering business. He saw a lot of oysters being sold at festivals “but nobody was doing oysters a la carte.”

BP’s Shuck Shack was the first food cart in Portland that had to get an inspection from the Maine Department of Marine Resources. Parsons occasionally gets negative comments on the street from people who worry about buying raw shellfish from a street vendor, but he tries his best to set their minds at ease.

“I’m confident in my product,” he said. “The oysters that I’m putting out I know are fresh because I drive back (to Damariscotta) and get them. I know almost every grower in the Damariscotta River.”

Parsons is interested in expanding into catering weddings and other events. To that end, he was one of at least three new food vendors who pitched producers from the ABC show “Shark Tank” when they came to Portland last week.

Madison Gouzie and Eric Holstein, both 29, took their Marshmallow Cart to “Shark Tank” to see if they could get funding for their ultimate dream – a large fleet of food carts that could be used for private catering as well as street work. Their Portland cart, which sells toasted marshmallows and s’mores, is a summertime spin-off of a business they had in Brooklyn selling s’mores and hot chocolate during the winter.

Gouzie said it’s easier to get set up and do business here since the market isn’t quite as saturated as New York. “It’s a neat time to be building a food cart in Maine,” he said.

To Brendan Parsons, 26, selling oysters on the street seemed like a great idea, and he couldn’t believe no one else in Portland was doing it yet.

Drop by for “oyster happy hour” between 4 and 6 p.m., and play a little game with Parsons for a discount on your oysters. He calls it “throw what you know for a buck a shuck.” If you beat him at rock-paper-scissors, you pay just $1 per oyster for up to three oysters.

WHAT HE SELLS: Oysters from the Damariscotta River, with choice of condiments: cocktail sauce, horseradish, lemon, and four mignonettes: classic French, champagne tarragon, seaweed cucumber and sesame ginger.

HOW MUCH: $3 per oyster, or $15 per half-dozen

CUSTOMER FAVORITE: Oyster with sesame ginger mignonette. People who are new to oysters tend to go for the cocktail sauce and horseradish. (Parsons prefers the seaweed cucumber because it doesn’t overwhelm the flavor of the oyster.)

WHERE TO FIND HIM: Parsons lists his location at the beginning of every week on his Facebook page. His hours are generally 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., or until 8 p.m. on weekends. His two favorite locations are Commercial Street (in front of the Custom House) and Bissell Brothers on Industrial Way, where he goes once a week.

Ed Shevenell, 27, gets a lot of smiles when he crosses the Casco Bay Bridge in his 1961 Cushman truckster with the steamer on the back.

“The fastest it goes is 42, so the South Portland bridge is kind of my max,” he said.

Shevenell and his partner, 26-year-old Kari Williams, live in South Portland but spend most days on the Eastern Prom selling, as Shevenell puts it, “cleverly named dogs with mild to wild toppings.”

Their newest item is “The Grange,” a hot dog topped with B&M baked beans, caramelized onions and sriracha ketchup – designed to give Mainers flashbacks to childhood bean suppers.

WHAT THEY SELL: Two types of dogs – a Pearl all-beef dog with natural casing and a Jordan’s red snapper – with creative toppings. The “Don’t You Forget a Banh Mi,” named after the Simple Minds song, is topped with banh mi slaw, hoisin mayo and lime juice.

HOW MUCH: $3 for plain dog with standard condiments; $5 for specialty dogs.

CUSTOMER FAVORITE: The Born to Brie Wild, topped with brie, apricot preserves and spicy brown mustard. “We grill the bun with the brie in it, so it gets all nice and melted,” Shevenell said.

HOW TO FIND THEM: During the week, the couple sets up on the Eastern Prom from 11 a.m. to 4 or 5 p.m. ­– later, if the weather is nice. On weekends, they do special events and pop-ups at local breweries. Check Facebook.

Dewey Ogg, 26, went to culinary school and has worked in a lot of restaurants, including Primo in Rockland. He works part-time as a surveyor but would eventually like to have his own restaurant – when he’s ready.

“I basically moved into this because I move around too much, and I don’t want to commit to a restaurant,” he said.

Fresh Eats is somewhere between a food cart and a food truck – it’s in a trailer.

WHAT HE SELLS: The menu is constantly changing, but the ingredients are always fresh and homemade, Ogg said. When we spoke with him, lamb gyros and homemade veggie burgers were the specials. Sometimes he sells tacos or Reuben or Cuban sandwiches. This week, he expects to make pork belly sliders and lobster sliders.

HOW MUCH: $9 for a lamb gyro; $8 for a veggie burger. Sides are $3, and soups are $4.

CUSTOMER FAVORITE: Lamb gyro.

HOW TO FIND HIM: Recently he has been parked on Spring Street, but Ogg says he always posts where he’ll be on Facebook.

Austin Miller, 27, and Hana Tamaki, 23, are veterans of the Portland restaurant scene. Partners in work and in life, they met while they were working at Buck’s Naked BBQ in the Old Port, and decided to strike out on their own with a Japanese food truck they hope will become a brick-and-mortar restaurant some day.

“We want to work for ourselves after working for other people for so many years,” Miller said. “We want to start small and then grow into a larger operation and move into a restaurant eventually, doing a similar style of food.”

WHAT THEY SELL: Japanese street food, including yakisoba, yaki onigiri and kushiyaki (grilled skewers) featuring ingredients such as lamb from North Star Sheep Farm, pork belly, chicken thighs, chicken livers and shishisto peppers.

HOW MUCH: Dishes range from around $3.50 for yaki onigiri to $8.50 for okonomiyaki, a savory pancake filled with a variety of grilled ingredients such as cabbage, pork belly or simple vegetables.

CUSTOMER FAVORITE: Yakisoba (fried noodles usually served with vegetables and some kind of protein) and yaki onigiri (crispy rice balls).

HOW TO FIND THEM: The truck is at Congress Square Park from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Friday “no matter what,” Miller says. Evenings and weekends you may find them at local breweries. They post their schedule every Monday on Facebook.

Molly Ritzo, 37, is using a borrowed food truck as a stepping stone to a larger business plan – bringing farm products from western Maine, where she has a family home, to southern Maine.

Ritzo had been working at Saltwater Grille in South Portland before launching her food truck, which is parked permanently on the hill at Jones Landing on Peaks Island. She sells breakfast, lunch and dinner daily, and does the food for every reggae Sunday. “Everything is as homecooked as possible,” she said. “We make our own chicken fingers.”

Ritzo plans to open a second truck at the Smith Farm on Route 100 in Falmouth in September. She will sell and showcase produce, meats, pickles, honey and baked goods from farmers in the western Maine mountain regions. The Falmouth venture will be year-round, but she plans to continue running the Peaks Island truck in summer.

WHAT SHE SELLS: Cinnamon buns, breakfast subs, grab-and-go sandwiches, fish chowder, sirloin burgers, tacos.

HOW MUCH: Lobster roll costs $16.99; fish tacos are $10.50 for two.

CUSTOMER FAVORITE: Lobster rolls and fish tacos made with pollock, lemon and lime juice, spicy peppers, cabbage and a sriracha aioli.

HOW TO FIND HER: Always at Jones Landing on Peaks Island. For updates, check Facebook.

Joe Hamilton, 29, grew up in an Italian family where Italian pastries were always on the table.

“We used to go down to Mike’s Pastry in Boston a lot and get cannolis,” he recalled. “I got tired of driving all the way down to Boston when I wanted to get one. I thought, why don’t I just try making them myself? So one day tried it and I started passing them out to my friends and family and I got good feedback.”

This summer, he decided to share his cannolis with the world. He is still working full-time at a local bakery, so he only gets his food truck out occasionally. He considers this summer a trial run for next year, when “I’m going to hit it hard every day.”

WHAT HE SELLS: Mini cannolis in four rotating flavors, including chocolate peanut butter pretzel, white chocolate raspberry, sea salt cashew caramel and chocolate Maine blueberry.

HOW MUCH: A single cannoli costs $2; three for $5; six for $10; a dozen for $18.

CUSTOMER FAVORITE: Traditional cannoli.

HOW TO FIND HIM: When he’s out, he parks on the Eastern Prom and on Spring Street from lunchtime until 7 p.m. Check for updates on Facebook.

Nat Jordan, a 16-year-old student at Cape Elizabeth High School, started thinking last winter about what he wanted to do this summer.

“Last summer I was really bored,” he said. “I wanted to have a way to make money. I looked at Craigslist and online forums, and there were some dishwashing jobs, but I wanted to do something that would maybe be more interesting.”

So he raised more than $2,500 on Kickstarter to build a mobile lemonade stand perched on a tricycle that he can ride around the Old Port. He’s still waiting on local and state permits and is hoping to get his health inspection sometime this week. Jordan, whose father is a sports reporter at the Press Herald, could be pedaling by Aug. 15, he said. He’s getting a late start this year, so he plans to ride on Saturdays after school starts.

WHAT HE WILL SELL: Lemonade, strawberry lemonade and limeade.

HOW MUCH: $2.50 or $3 for 16-ounce cups, and $4.50 or $5 for 24-ounce cups.

HOW TO FIND HIM: Check his Facebook page for a launch date.

Business partners Andy Gerry and Baxter Key, both 24, have both worked in the restaurant industry. They initially thought about serving breakfast on their first food cart, but Gerry had some seafood connections so they decided to go with what Maine tourists like best: lobster rolls. Their goal is to have a brick-and-mortar shop someday, with the cart as a side business.

In addition to making their own mayos to mix with the lobster, Gerry and Key use toasted lobster shells to make a lobster ghee – a lobster-infused brown butter.

“People love that,” Baxter said. “It just adds some extra lobster flavor. Then we give the option of adding bacon or avocado to the roll, which I haven’t really seen anywhere else.”

WHAT THEY SELL: Lobster rolls on brioche made by Southside Bakery in South Portland. The rolls can be made with just lobster, or mixed with lobster ghee or your choice of mayo: lime, jalapeno or red pepper. They also sell crab rolls made with Maine Jonah crab meat.

HOW MUCH: Lobster rolls $15, crab rolls $13. Add bacon or avocado to either sandwich for $1 extra.

CUSTOMER FAVORITE: Lobster roll with bacon and jalapeno-and-lime mayo.

HOW TO FIND THEM: They’re at Bissell Brothers on Industrial Way every Wednesday and Thursday, and at Oxbow Blending and Bottling, 49 Washington Ave., every Saturday.

Curtis Scott, 27, has had at a lot of different jobs, including delivering pizzas and working at a brewery and at Cabela’s. He jokes about starting a hot dog cart: “This is my first try at doing something with my life.”

WHAT HE SELLS: Scott takes staple sandwich toppings and puts them on hot dogs. There are eight selections on his menu, such as the Buffalo Blue Dog that’s topped with mozarella, bacon, Frank’s RedHot sauce and blue cheese. The Reuben dog is topped with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, Thousand Island and sriracha. He also serves a plain dog, and sausages with onions and green peppers.

HOW MUCH: A basic hot dog is $3. Specialty dogs are $4, and the sausages are $5.

CUSTOMER FAVORITE: Many customers go for the plain hot dog with mustard and relish.

HOW TO FIND HIM: Scott isn’t on social media. For the most part, he can be found on Commercial Street, near the Ocean Gateway terminal, from 11 a.m. to 3 or 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

A mainstay in Brunswick for the past few years, the Lola’s Taqueria food truck has moved to Portland to sell a simplified menu three days a week. Owner Jonathan Holmes, 35, has a commercial kitchen in Westbrook where he produces wholesale salsa for local stores, and he is looking to expand that business.

WHAT HE SELLS: Three kinds of burritos and plates: an avocado vegetarian option, a grilled chicken option, and pork. (No tacos or quesadillas at this location.)

HOW MUCH: $7-8

CUSTOMER FAVORITE: The ABC burrito – avocado, beans and cheese.

HOW TO FIND HIM: The truck is at Maine Craft Distilling, 101 Fox St., every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 12 to 3 p.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. For updates, visit their Facebook page.

Joel Glatz originally parked his food cart down by the Casco Bay Lines Ferry terminal, but he found people there were in a hurry, always looking at their watch as they tried to catch the next boat.

So he moved down a few blocks down Commercial Street to the area around DiMillo’s and Long Wharf, where there’s more foot traffic and hungry tourists.

“People around here are walking around more, they’re meandering more, they’re waiting for a cruise or a tour,” he said. “They’re just wandering around shopping.”

WHAT HE SELLS: Lobster rolls, lobster grilled cheese, crab melts, hot dogs, and occasionally fish tacos or pulled pork.

HOW MUCH: Prices range from $3 for a hot dog to $14.95 for a lobster roll.

CUSTOMER FAVORITE: Lobster grilled cheese made with Cabot sharp cheddar.

HOW TO FIND HIM: Commercial Street near DiMillo’s, Wednesday through Sunday; on First Friday, he moves to Monument Square for the evening.

Every summer Tanya Rosenberg, 37, runs her wholesale popsicle business out of her business space on Anderson Street.

She sells popsicles made with berries from local farmers at places like Rosemont Market on Munjoy Hill and Bow Street Market in Freeport, and she takes them to festivals and farmers’ markets. This year, she developed a food cart to showcase her product to a wider audience. She’ll be closing for the season in October.

WHAT SHE SELLS: Popsicles in 55 flavors, including blueberry lemonade, watermelon mint, raspberry hibiscus and chocolate-covered cherries.

HOW MUCH: $3

CUSTOMER FAVORITE: Blueberry lemonade.

HOW TO FIND HER: She posts her location on Facebook. Locations include Monument Square and Commercial Street.

Charlie Compton, 15, modeled his bike-powered food cart after a creme brulee truck he saw in San Francisco. “I always wanted to start a food truck,” he said, “but I’m too young to drive, so me and my mom came up with the idea of the food bike.”

He built his cart with the help of a neighbor after raising $1,500 on Kickstarter. Compton makes the creme brulee in a commercial kitchen, then torches it once someone orders one.

What does a 15-year-old know about making creme brulee? Plenty. Compton learned how to make the classic dessert in a French cooking class he took while traveling around Europe.

WHAT HE SELLS: Creme brulee.

HOW MUCH: $4 each.

CUSTOMER FAVORITE: Compton is experimenting with different flavors, but for now is only selling traditional creme brulee.

HOW TO FIND HIM: Compton will be at Flea Bites in Portland on the first Friday in September. Otherwise, his schedule varies. Watch his Facebook page for updates.

Christopher Hershey, 42, a disabled veteran who worked for years at the State Department and the White House, now uses his diplomatic skills to sell kettle corn.

Hershey and his family love having movie nights, and what’s a movie night without popcorn? He started making it at home, and now peddles the family’s GMO-free kettle corn on the streets of Portland. “We’ve really tried to elevate the ingredients to make it gourmet and not your usual kettle corn,” he said. “It’s a snack food, but it doesn’t have to be junk food.”

WHAT HE SELLS: A variety of flavors, including Berbere Bliss (Ethiopian spice blend), Rosemary-Parmesan and Maki Pop (Maine sea salt and seaweed blend).

HOW MUCH: A small is $4.50; large $6.50; party size $11.50.

CUSTOMER FAVORITE: Casco Bay, a more savory kettle corn made with spices that taste similar to Old Bay seasoning but include ingredients such as Hungarian paprika for “a little bit of sweet, a little bit of heat.” Kids love the Cinnamonium, which smells like French toast as it’s popping.

HOW TO FIND HIM: Most often found on weekdays on Marginal Way (next to Trader Joe’s and across from AAA) or Spring Street. Weekends he parks on the Eastern Prom. Hours are usually around 1 to 4 p.m. Check Facebook for updates.

Madison Gouzie and Eric Holstein, both 29 and veterans of the restaurant industry, opened their first business in Brooklyn – a winter-only shop called Winter Warmers. They sold s’mores and lots and lots of hot chocolate. The Colby College grads decided to flip the business on its head and turn it into a summertime food cart in Portland, which reminds them a lot of Brooklyn.

“We would have loved to have a food cart in New York because foot traffic there is just insane,” Gouzie said, “but the barrier for entry there is equally insane.”

Their ultimate dream is to have a larger fleet of food carts.

WHAT THEY SELL: Giant toasted marshmallows on a stick in three flavors – vanilla, coconut and either Maine maple or raspberry. S’mores made with these same marshmallows and homemade graham crackers.

HOW MUCH: $2 for three flavored marshmallows, $4 for a s’more

CUSTOMER FAVORITE: The smell of a coconut s’more being toasted with a torch draws the most customers to the cart. “It just smells like summer,” Gouzie said.

HOW TO FIND THEM: Weekdays the cart is in Post Office Park in the Old Port from 1 to 6 p.m.; weekends it is parked in front of the Glass Lounge at the Hyatt Place hotel on Fore Street from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. For updates, check Facebook.